Number of Elderly Aged 65 and Above Who Live Alone from 2013 to 2017

Ms Sun Xueling asked the Minister for Health in the past five years, (a) what is the number of elderly aged 65 and above who lived alone; and (b) what is the number of elderly found dead in their homes while living on their own.

The number of Singapore residents aged 65 and above who lived alone in the past five years is shown in Table 1 below. We do not track the number of elderly found dead in their homes while living on their own.

Given the growing number of seniors living alone, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has been making additional efforts, together with our community partners, to engage and care for our seniors. We launched the Community Network for Seniors (CNS) in 2016, which aims to develop a strong system of community-based support to complement family support, so as to keep seniors healthy and socially engaged and help them age well in place. A key focus area is befriending. We work with our network of Pioneer Generation Ambassadors, grassroots leaders and community voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) to connect seniors who are lonely or at risk of social isolation with befrienders or neighbour volunteers in their neighbourhood. To date, we have over 850 volunteers serving 2,500 vulnerable seniors in 47 constituencies. We are also leveraging technology to better support our seniors. For example, Changi General Hospital is piloting Care Line, a 24/7 tele-befriending and telecare service. This programme supports seniors living in the community through alerts on active ageing activities in their area, information about programmes and urgent assistance if seniors are unwell.

Building communities of care requires all of us to play our part. MOH will continue to work with our community partners, other agencies and our fellow Singaporeans to support our seniors.