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By C C Pung
Justice of Peace
Latest! AI-enabled robotic nurses to come into China Market in 2025.
Feigned in human form, the robots which can be ‘taught’ to suit a buyer’s needs, will cost between RMB10-30 thousand.
With aged care expected to be an industry of the future, China is staying ahead of the curve, not least because it is also facing an aging population.
Although care homes are everywhere, care workers are hard to find and satisfying the seniors’ unique and temperamental needs is a universal challenge.
It looks like a dilemma that can only be left to AI technology.
The story reminds me of China’s lucrative ‘nanny’ industry miked by well-trained certified maids commanding upwards of RMB25,000 a month.
A generation of new rich in China living in huge mansions are known to hire up to half dozen of these unsung professionals whose skills combined gourmet cooking, star-rated housekeeping, childcare, gardening, etc.
Unlike here at home where the ‘amah’ or ‘kakak’ are rated less than decent humans, China’s Hughenden maids are formally trained and certified, and are hired with full benefits from annual leave, medical benefits , insurance a d protection from unfair dismissal.
Not unlike Malaysia where university graduates’ starting salaries are pathetically low, the young in China are also rebelling by shunning job-seeking, and there’s a growing trend among them returning to their rural birth villages instead of remain struggling in cities.
In Sabah, amilies struggling tjuggle with work and raising children is an old phenomenon.
Local women have shown a reluctance to servitude.
Over the decades, Sabah’s demister help have been mostly from the Philippines and Indonesia.
Despite much govt effort to organise the sector’s manpower needs, none of its programmes to train local wo.en to be pro domestic help has succeeded.
As mobility and communication become easier, a large group of hardy Timorese women are stepping in offering their maid services on hourly basis.
Personally, my mid headache started with my first born 40+ years ago.
I still struggle with finding reliable help in housekeeping.
In a nutshell, this domestic help setor is just another example of our government’s failure to respond to a need.
Now you know why our problem with water and power supply are a nightmare that refuses to or won’t go away.
Maybe we need AI robots in government?
