Guangzhou plans app for elderly to pay their canteen bill

Guangzhou's bureau of civil affairs is developing an app for senior citizens to help them pay for their meals bills via their mobile phones in the canteens for the elderly in their neighborhood committees.

"We will soon help senior citizens pay their bills via mobile phones or televisions when they dine in these neighborhood canteens in the near future," said the bureau in a statement published on its official website on Monday.

Meanwhile, the bureau wants the neighborhood canteens to employ special dietitians to introduce healthy recipes for the elderly to attract senior citizen diners with delicious cuisines at reasonable prices, said the statement.

Guangzhou,the provincial capital of Guangdong, has built a total of 705 canteens for the elderly, covering all the townships and neighborhood committees, in the entire city by the end of last year, benefiting more than 1.35 million senior citizens.

Of them, 521 canteens were built in 2017.

The city government has invested more than 137 million yuan ($21 million) to improve the city's community home care service, with priorities given for the construction of the neighborhood canteens for the elderly, since the end of 2016.

A 12-yuan standard set meal now costs the elderly who are 60-year-old only 8 yuan in the neighborhood canteens, the statement said.

A retired woman surnamed Liang said the neighborhood canteens for elderly not only provide delicious cuisines at reasonable prices for the senior citizens, but also a place for the retirees to talk and entertain.

"I usually chat with neighbors and other retirees in the canteen while I dine there," said Liang who expressed her satisfaction with the canteen for the elderly in her neighborhood committee in Guangzhou's Yuexiu district.