来做老人之友，付费的那种

老人常常与“迟暮”“孤独”相连，子女无法常伴左右，旧日的美好也已成为过往，如何让老人摆脱孤独，充实而闲适地享受老年时光？由此，“孙辈陪伴”服务应运而生。

Bill Rodger, 91, often finds himself sitting on a worn flower-print couch in his living room in North Hollywood, Calif., facing a wall of accolades that document his long life.

91岁的比尔·罗杰生活在好莱坞北部，他经常自己坐在客厅里那张老旧的印花沙发上，对着一整面墙的荣勋发呆——那是他漫长一生的忠实记录。

译注：Hollywood，又称荷里活，位于美国西海岸加利福尼亚州洛杉矶郊外，依山傍水，景色宜人

There are photos of Mr. Rodger over the decades winning sports tournaments and posing with grandchildren. There are golf medals, plaques and the most recent addition, a monthly bird calendar.

墙上贴着许多照片：体育赛事获胜照、和孙辈的合影、高尔夫奖牌、牌匾，还有新增的鸟类月历。

“I’d rather be busy, but I haven’t been busy in a really long time,” Mr. Rodger said in late January from this position, his voice trailing off. “I guess going to the doctor keeps me busy.”

“我宁愿忙一点，除了看医生时有事情做，我已经很长时间没忙过了，”一月将尽，罗杰在荣誉墙前接受着采访，声音越来越低。

The admission warranted a warm pat on Mr. Rodger’s shoulder from a smiling young man sitting beside him. Ricardo Figueroa, 31, isn’t a family member or caretaker or even a neighbor. He’s a paid companion who was connected to Mr. Rodger through Papa, a health tech company that provides “grandkids on demand.”

听完罗杰的话，一位年轻人面带微笑，温暖而善意地拍拍他的肩膀。31岁的里卡多·菲格罗亚不是罗杰的家人，也不是看护人，甚至不是邻居。他是一名付费的陪伴人员，通过医疗科技公司Papa提供的“随叫随到孙辈服务”与罗杰建立了联系。

Before the new coronavirus pandemic, the two spent multiple hours together each week — running errands, going to dialysis appointments, or just watching movies. Today, their relationship is restricted to phone calls but they remain close.

新冠病毒爆发前，他们每周都会在一起呆上几个小时——帮忙跑腿，做透析预约，或者只是一起看个电影。目前他们只能打电话联系，但仍然很亲密。

“The whole situation is so scary,” said Mr. Figueroa on the phone, from his home. “So just talking to him is so uplifting.”

“现在情况太可怕了，”菲格罗亚在家中接受电话采访时表示。“所以跟他聊聊天能让我心情好些。”

Likewise, Mr. Rodger said, “It’s good to hear from him!”

同样罗杰也说：“能和他通话联系太好了！”

The two men are a good match by design. Founded in 2018, Papa pairs older adults with college students and young workers who have common interests and hobbies. Mr. Rodger and Mr. Figueroa are both military veterans who enjoy documentaries, sports and an occasional beer, and they live within a few blocks of each other.

这两个人非常合得来。Papa公司成立于2018年，致力于按照共同的兴趣和爱好将年长者与大学生和年轻工作者相互匹配。罗杰和菲格罗亚都是退伍军人，喜欢看纪录片，喜欢运动，偶尔也喝杯啤酒，他们住的地方离彼此不远，只有几个街区。

But whereas the 5,000 Papa pals once played card games or worked on memoirs with the seniors they have befriended, today they are FaceTiming or calling each other to discuss a world in disarray.

然而，尽管这5000名Papa伙伴此前会和他们配对的朋友一起玩纸牌游戏或者撰写回忆录，他们现在只能通过视频聊天或者打电话讨论这个混乱失序的世界。

Some have shifted to running errands, picking up groceries or prescriptions. For these and other tasks, they make between $11 and $14 an hour, not including tips and covered expenses like gas, on a freelance basis. (Papa is currently available in 20 states; the company typically charges clients $20 to $25 an hour.)

有些人已经开始转向承担跑腿、买杂货或配药这种工作。对于这种任务，他们每小时的收入在11美元到14美元之间，这不包括小费和汽油等费用。(Papa目前在20个州提供服务;该公司通常向客户收取每小时20至25美元的费用。)

Despite the low wage, this is still vital work. According to a 2018 AARP Foundation survey, roughly one-third of older adults in the United States are socially isolated, a state that is linked to increased health risks, including heart disease, cancer, depression, diabetes and suicide. Vivek Murthy, the former United States surgeon general, has written that loneliness and social isolation are “associated with a reduction in life span similar to that caused by smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”

尽管工资很低，但这是一项至关重要的工作。根据美国退休人员协会基金会2018年的一项调查，美国有大约三分之一的老年人处于社交孤立状态，这种状态会很大增加包括心脏病、癌症、抑郁症、糖尿病和自杀在内的各种健康风险。美国前卫生局局长维韦克默西也曾写道，“孤独和社交孤立与寿命缩短之间存在联系，效果如同每天吸15支烟”。

And the problem has an impact on the health care system. Last year, there were thousands of emergency room visits in Dallas that had nothing to do with physical ailments at all. The patients were just completely socially isolated, without anyone to turn to for help.

这个问题对医疗保健系统也产生了影响。去年达拉斯有成千上万的急诊病例与身体疾病无关，而是因为病人被社会所孤立，没有人可以求助。

“Loneliness is now finally being recognized as a disease, not only at a personal level, but also from a health care perspective,” said Andrew Parker, 32, who founded Papa in 2018.

32岁的安德鲁·帕克于2018年创立了Papa公司，他表示：“孤独终于被真正视为一种疾病，不仅是单从个人层面，医疗保健的层面也是如此。”

His company is one of several that aims to be a stopgap, and health insurers who may be looking to cut costs have begun to take notice.

作为以解决这一问题为目标的公司之一，Papa公司得到了那些致力于减少成本的医疗保险公司的注意。

Mr. Rodger’s family is paying for Papa because of a conundrum: Mr. Rodger’s granddaughter Tanya Martin had been his primary caretaker for more than four years. But once Mr. Rodger needed dialysis, it became too much for her to handle with her full-time job as an airplane mechanic.

罗杰的家人在Papa公司购买服务是因为一个难题：罗杰的孙女塔尼亚马丁是他四年多来的主要监护人。但当罗杰需要透析时，她分身乏术，无法同时兼顾自己飞机机械师的全职工作。

He didn’t qualify to have further assistance covered by his health insurance, but he also couldn’t afford a private caretaker, which can cost about $300 a day in Los Angeles, according to the prices Ms. Martin was quoted.

罗杰没有在医疗保险中获得进一步救助的资格，也负担不起私人看护的费用，根据马丁的说法，在洛杉矶治疗，每天的费用约为300美元。

“He doesn’t need medical care — he needs another me,” said Ms. Martin, 40, who discovered Papa through a Google search.

“他不需要医学治疗，他需要另一个像我一样的人”，四十岁的马丁女士说，她在谷歌上发现了Papa这个平台。

During the pandemic Ms. Martin is working from home, but she still doesn’t have enough time to simultaneously care for grandfather and 8-year-old son. The new arrangement is that Mr. Figueroa checks in on Mr. Rodger socially, while another Papa pal transports Mr. Rodger to dialysis. “There’s no other option,” Ms. Martin said. “This saved my home, saved my career.

疫情期间，马丁女士在家工作，但她仍然没有足够的时间同时照料祖父何8岁的儿子。新的安排是，菲格罗亚社交性地拜访罗杰，而另一位Papa上的朋友负责送罗杰去透析。“我们别无选择，”马丁女士说，“这拯救了我的家庭和事业。”

It’s a very tough time to be one of the 1.5 million Americans who currently live in nursing homes. About one-fifth of U.S. virus deaths are linked to nursing facilities, and employees, who are often poorly paid and have multiple jobs, are overtaxed and afraid for their own families. Visitors have been banned, heightening the atmosphere of fear and isolation.

对于目前生活在疗养院的150万美国人中的每一个人，这段时间都是非常艰难的。美国大约五分之一的新冠死亡病例都与这些养老机构有关。而机构的雇员们往往收入不高且同时打几份工，他们超负荷地工作，同时还要为家庭操心。在疗养院，探视者被拒之门外，而这加重了恐惧和孤立的气氛。

Even before the pandemic, caregivers and aides were often overtaxed, tasked with helping many other residents and with little time to socialize. Emotional support can be hard to come by.

其实在疫情爆发之前，看护人员和他们的助手就已经在超负荷地工作了，他们的任务是帮助其他的许多居民度过难关，这使得他们用于社交的时间微乎其微，因此情感上的支持也就很难获得。

“There’s no real meaningful conversation,” said Liz Barlowe, the president of the Aging Life Care Association, a nonprofit representing senior care professionals. “There is that lack of connectedness, of being present and hyper-focused on one person.”

“（他们的生活中）没有真正有意义的对话，缺乏联系，缺乏在场参与感，过分关注单一的个体。”老年生活护理协会主席利兹·巴洛说。该协会是一个代表老年护理专业性的非营利组织。

So Mon Ami, another company that facilitates senior companion services through nursing homes and for individuals, recently set up a volunteer phone bank to support older people isolated by shelter-in-place orders. It drew 300 hundred（有误？） volunteers within days. (The company’s founders, Madeline Dangerfield-Cha, 32, and Joy Zhang, 31, said that Mon Ami’s paid companions have also shifted to phone calls or virtual visits, staying in touch with seniors by putting on mini concerts, reading books aloud and instructing gentle movement exercises.)

One of those volunteers is Morgan Steele, 25, a clinical research coordinator at Stanford University.

因此，另一家叫做Mon Ami的公司针对老年个体通过疗养院促进了老年陪伴服务，这个公司最近设立了一个志愿者电话库，以支持被收容所制度孤立在外的老年人。它在几天之内就吸引了3万志愿者。（公司创始人，32岁的马德琳·丹格菲尔德和31岁的乔伊·张说，Mon Ami的付费陪伴服务也转向了电话或线上访问，通过举办小型音乐会、大声朗读书籍和指导适度的运动与老年人保持联系。） 其中一位志愿者是25岁的斯坦福大学临床研究协调员摩根·斯蒂尔。

She was recently paired with Hugh Ping, 77, with whom she chats several times a week. Mon Ami suggests that companions and clients chat for 15 to 30 minutes at a time, “but we can talk well over half an hour without even realizing it,” Ms. Steele said.

她最近和77岁的休·平结成了对，他们每周都会聊几次。Mon Ami公司建议志愿者和客户每次聊天的时间是15到30分钟，“但是我们能聊上半个多小时，我们甚至都没意识到聊了这么久。”斯蒂尔说。

Mr. Ping’s daughter, Deanna Ping, said it has been challenging to strip her sociable father from the small interactions that were “very major to him”: He loved venturing out from his home in the Bay Area to go to the drugstore and to restaurants where he knew all the staff.

平先生的女儿迪恩娜·平说，要把她善于交际的父亲从“对他来说非常重要”的小圈子中拉出来是一项挑战:他只喜欢从湾区的家出发，去药店和餐馆，他对这些非常熟悉。

“It brings me a lot of peace to know there are others to talk with him,” she said.

“当我知道还有别人能和他聊得来时，我感到很安心。”她说。

Often, in conversation with Ms. Steele, Mr. Ping compares the current situation to having lived through the Cuban missile crisis when he was in the Air Force. “He talks about a time where people didn’t know if their whole world was ending,” Ms. Steele said.

在与斯蒂尔的交谈中，平先生常常拿现在的局势和古巴导弹危机时期相比，那时他正在空军服役。“他谈到在那段时间里，人们都不知道这个世界是否正在走向终结。”斯蒂尔说。

It helps keep things in perspective. “We think we have it bad when we’re working from home with our significant other or roommates, but then you start to realize there are people who are literally so alone,” Ms. Steele said. “A half-hour call can really brighten their day.”

这有助于人们更清晰全面地看待问题。“当我们在家里工作时，整日里和另一半或者室友呆在一起，我们会感到很糟糕，但随后你却意识到，有些人是真的很孤独，”斯蒂尔说，“半个小时的电话聊天真的能点亮他们的生活。”

For paid companion positions, both Papa and Mon Ami screen potential candidates through in-depth interviews, as well as through background and motor vehicle checks. (The volunteer bank is far less intensively screened, though still requires an application.)

对于陪伴志愿者的人选，Papa和Mon Ami公司都会通过深入的面试、背景调查和车检来筛选潜在候选人。(进志愿者库的要求则宽松得多，不过仍然需要申请。)

While a majority of companions have relevant experience — as nurses, social workers or medical school students — Ms. Zhang said Mon Ami looks for those who possess social and emotional intelligence skills, those who “can be present and can engage with someone who is very different from you.”

虽然大多数的志愿者都有相关的经验——如护士、社工或医学院学生——但张女士说，Mon Ami公司寻找的是那些拥有社交技能且情商也很高的人，那些“能够活在当下，能够与各种不同的人交往”的人。

It’s an appealing gig for students with flexible schedules or for those who now find themselves with time on their hands. (Mon Ami companions work an average of four hours per week.) But the benefits go both ways. The start-up routinely hears that the work does as much for their emotional well-being of many of companions as it may do for the seniors.

对于有平时日程安排不固定的学生或那些临时有空的人来说，这是一份很理想的工作。(Mon Ami公司的志愿者平均每周工作4小时。)但这项工作所带来的好处是双向的。这家初创公司经常听到一些反馈，这项工作对许多志愿者情绪的影响，与对老年人的一样大。

Ms. Dangerfield-Cha is clear that Mon Ami is but one option in an industry suffering from a senior care shortage. About 10,000 people turn 65 each day, and 43 percent envision aging in their primary home. Estimates from the Census Bureau indicate that Americans over the age of 65 will comprise nearly 20 percent of the total population by 2030.

丹杰菲尔德-查很清楚，在一个老年人护理短缺的行业里，Mon Ami公司只是选择之一。每天，大约有1万人会到65岁，这其中43%的人希望能在自己的家中养老。美国人口普查局估计，到2030年，65岁以上的美国人将占总人口的近20%。

“The reality is that as our society is aging more rapidly than at any other time in history, we need all types of support,” Ms. Dangerfield-Cha said. “We’re going to need all of it — and then some.”

“现实情况是，我们的社会老龄化速度比以往任何时候都要快，我们需要各种形式的支持，”丹杰菲尔德-查说，“我们首先需要各方面的帮助，此后会需要一些更有针对性的帮助。”

To that point, AARP data shows that those who are socially isolated cost an additional $6.7 billion in Medicare spending; Papa already works with 10 health plans, including Humana, Aetna and Florida Blue, and the company is pursuing more partnerships, including offering the service to new parents and other caregivers. It has raised $12.6 million in venture funding to date.

在这一点上，美国退休人员协会(AARP)的数据显示，那些被社会孤立的人需要额外花费67亿美元的医疗支出;Papa公司已经与包括Humana、Aetna和Florida Blue在内的10家医疗机构合作，该公司正在寻找更多的合作伙伴，提供包括为新父母和其他护理人员提供的服务。到目前为止，它已经筹集了1260万美元的风投资金。

As it expands, Papa is also working to safeguard its continuing companionships, like that of Mr. Figueroa and Mr. Rodger. Not that the two need much oversight. They already have big plans once the world reverts to normal.

随着规模的扩大，Papa公司也在着重维护志愿者和被帮助对象的长期关系，就像菲格罗亚和罗杰已经建立起的那样。这并不是说两者需要Papa公司的监管。他们现在已经有了宏伟的计划，只等世界从疫情中恢复正常。

“I want to get into golfing now, thanks to him,” Mr. Figueroa said of Mr. Rodger. “As soon as we’re clear to go out, we’re definitely going to get out there in the field.”

“多亏了他，我现在想开始打高尔夫了，”菲格罗亚在谈到罗杰时说，“只要疫情好转，人们可以出门，我们两个一定要去球场挥上几杆。”

Mr. Rodger, excited by the prospect of a day on the putting green, couldn’t contain his enthusiasm — or his grandfatherly tendencies. “I have some pointers,” he said. “I could help you.”

罗杰为了有一天能在果岭打球而兴奋不已，难掩祖父对孙辈一般的热情，“我会一些技巧，”他说，“我可以教你。”