The first 12 community assistance service stations for senior citizens in Datong in North China's Shanxi province were recently established and started operating in the city.

The initiative is part of the Datong Helping the Elderly Program, which has adopted Pingcheng district in the city as the pilot area.

The program aims to enable seniors, including the left-behind elderly, to lead a full and fruitful life by establishing an online and offline community home care service system based on 398 Intelligent Cloud Platform, 398 Smart Terminal for quick help and a call center.

Assistance services for medical care, shopping, emergencies, cleaning, delivering meals and transport have been launched under the program.

Early in August 2019, Datong city received approval to be a national pilot city for the reform of home and community elderly care services.

Since then, the city has been establishing a citywide, centralized management, as well as a comprehensive and open smart home and community elderly care service platform. It has also been developing a home and community elderly care services network and accelerating the pilot work of community home elderly care services in Pingcheng district.

According to the local authorities, the Datong Helping the Elderly Program is expected to drive spending by senior consumers of 400 million yuan ($61.88 million) annually in Pingcheng district and provide more than 1,000 jobs.