The percentage of population of Hakone Town aged 65 and over is 35.7% as of 31 May 2017, which means one in three people is elderly. This trend is projected to continue, and needs for services of the elderly are expected to continue to grow as well.
From this perspective, Hakone Town set a basic principal, “a society where the elderly can live a safe, active and comfortable life,” as a common goal for citizens, communities and administration in the field of the elderly welfare and is implementing various policies for the elderly.
Specifically, we established five basic policies; to establish and strengthen community-based integrated care system, to respect the elderly’s human rights and their own initiatives, to encourage citizens’ social participation and cooperation, to change our image of the elderly into active one and to focus on their diverse lifestyles. We are providing various services to achieve these basic policies.
For the elderly to live age in place, it is important to provide medical, nursing care and welfare services comprehensively, so we are also endeavoring to build this framework.
Hakone Town is located in the Western Area of Kanagawa Prefecture, where the municipalities have a close relationship historically and geographically. Kanagawa Prefectural Government positioned this area as a “strategic area for improvement of ME-BYO” and has promoted projects to revitalize this area in order to extend healthy life expectancy of the people living in and visiting to the area, through improvement of ME-BYO.
Hakone Town will join the projects collaborating with Kanagawa Prefectural Government and other municipalities in this area and aim to extend healthy life expectancy of Hakone Town. We will continue to listen to the needs of the elderly, the opinions of citizens and experts, and reflect them on our policies. Furthermore, we will implement age-friendly projects in various fields by linking with the comprehensive plan of Hakone Town.
(ME-BYO: Rather than regarding health and illness as being mutually exclusive, the concept of ME-BYO views a person’s mental and physical condition as continuously changing along a spectrum between health and illness).