00:00An impromptu concert to start the day with Ms. Huang's 100-year-old father on the drum.
00:14His health has been declining, limiting his mobility and restricting what he can eat.
00:19Ms. Huang and her family take care of him, and she takes both day and night shifts herself.
00:24She takes a little break when her adult children come home from work,
00:28but then she's on her own with him again through the night.
00:31She's in her 70s, and says worrying about her father's health
00:35and constantly getting up in the night is wearing her down.
00:58From full-time career to full-time caregiver, Ms. Huang has spent the past two decades caring for three loved ones,
01:17her late husband, her late mother, and now her father.
01:20It means most of her later life has been spent staying alert to the needs of others.
01:29After losing her husband and mother, she joined a community of family caregivers and NGOs
01:34that organize all kinds of creative activities,
01:38and joined a theater group that spreads awareness about dementia, something her mother lived with.
01:43But ever since her father's condition worsened, she has found herself back at square one.
01:48Sometimes she calls a suicide hotline just to have someone to talk to.
01:52Why do I want to go to心理之中?
01:54Because this past few years I have been locked in my house.
01:59I think my goal of my last goal is that I have to take the three of them to take the three of them to go.
02:06I don't want my children to carry on me like this road.
02:13Because this road to the 20th century, it's just a terrible thing.
02:20Miss Huang is not alone in her struggle. With Taiwan's birth rate steadily declining,
02:32seniors caring for seniors is becoming an alarming trend. One in five people here is 65 or older,
02:39officially making Taiwan a super-aged society. Among them, more than 570,000 seniors take care
02:46of their elderly spouses or family members. That means roughly one in every age seniors is caring
02:52for another elderly person. And every year, more stories surface about aging caregivers taking
03:03the lives of their elderly kin after years of mental and physical strain. One NGO says older
03:09family caregivers like Miss Huang face a unique challenge. As they watch the people they care
03:14for age rapidly, they also grapple with the reality of their own aging.
03:18And there is help available. The government has rolled
03:44out a range of long-term care services. Under a new plan taking effect this year,
03:49there will be more community and home care services both day and night, as well as options
03:54to hire migrant caretakers by the hour rather than live in. But whether families can afford
03:59these services is another issue. And the right subsidies might not be reaching the right targets.
04:04If you choose living or home care, you'll have to reach be for
04:08a month.
04:09You will have to reach 3 to 6,000. But if you have a home care system,
04:12you'll be taking over 1,000. That is the main plan. It's also
04:153 to 5.0 pyro crisis.
04:17Because if you are in a home care room.
04:19Another issue is capacity.
04:37There are not enough professional caregivers in the country, meaning even with care homes
04:42and subsidies, the responsibilities often fall back on families.
04:49For families already under strain, public long-term care services offer only a fragile safety
05:12net.
05:13Until more support becomes available, Ms. Huang will continue to care for her father, hoping
05:18her children never have to carry the same weight.
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