Support for Frail Elderly and their Care-givers

Mr Speaker, Sir, in March this year, my Ministry announced a series of initiatives to build up community- and home-based eldercare services to better support ageing-in-place. We are on track to roll out the measures progressively over the next few months.

Last month, MCYS unveiled the "3-in-1" concept for Integrated Day Facilities or IDF for short. First, the IDFs will offer integrated care services for the frail elderly, combining social day care, centre-based nursing, community rehabilitation and dementia care. Second, IDFs will provide information, coordination and referral services to better support families and care-givers. Third, the larger IDFs will provide gym and social space for community use.

By second quarter of next year, we should complete the building of two new IDFs – one in Tampines and the other in Toa Payoh – and the upgrading of six existing day-care centres to IDFs. Another new IDF at Serangoon will be completed in the second half of 2013. By 2016, there will be about 40 IDFs serving up to 6,000 elderly. Details on the location of the remaining IDFs will be announced in the next two to three months.

My Ministry is also introducing social home-based care where the elderly at home can receive care services, such as personal hygiene, housekeeping and laundry from a single care worker. We are working closely with our partners to recruit and train these care workers so as to launch this service in the fourth quarter of this year. By 2016, we will scale this service to benefit up to 4,000 elderly.

I am also happy to share that the Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW) Grant of $120 per month will come into effect from October this year. Applications have opened since 6 August this year. Households which employ a Foreign Domestic Worker to look after an elderly or person with disabilities and meet the eligibility criteria can apply for the grant.

To provide greater support for the vulnerable elderly in the community, my Ministry will organise the existing Seniors Activity Centres (SACs) into a hub-and-spoke concept, where Anchor SACs will support clusters of SACs to strengthen and expand their reach. Anchor SACs will perform additional roles, such as closer monitoring through home visits, case management and counselling services, for vulnerable elderly in the community. We expect the first six Anchor SACs to start operations by December this year. By 2016, we will have 16 Anchor SACs supporting some 39,000 elderly Singaporeans.

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Mr Speaker, Sir, these are some of the initiatives my Ministry is working on to better support our elderly in the community and their caregivers. In planning the number and distribution of eldercare facilities, we take into consideration the demographic profile of each region, the adequacy of existing services and the availability of suitable premises. I am confident that most Singaporeans support the vision of ageing-in-place and understand the need for eldercare services to be developed within our communities. We will continue to engage the local communities, refine the implementation strategies as well as review our services from time to time to ensure that they remain relevant and adequate.

Sir, I thank the Minister for the comprehensive reply. I have one supplementary question for the Minister. We observe that there is an increasing number of Singaporeans in their 50s to 60s who have to support their even more elderly parents in their 80s and 90s. We want to know how MCYS can help this group of Singaporeans better because some of these Singaporeans also have to support their children in their education.

Sir, let me thank the hon Member Mr Ang for his comment. And indeed, we share his concern that as the life expectancy of our Singaporeans go into the 80s and 90s, there will be people in their 50s and 60s who are required, not only to take care of their elderly parents in their 80s and 90s, but also at the same time, take care of their children who might be in their early 20s or some in their 30s. Indeed, this is one of the big challenges for our society as we face an ageing population.

MCYS will continue to look at how we can better support this group of people because some of them may be near retirement and they might need some other specific help. On top of the current schemes, we are also going to look at what other new schemes we may be required to implement to cater to this specific group of people that the Member has highlighted, who are in their 50s or 60s. They are near retirement or just past retirement but perhaps still with the need to take care of their elderly parents. In the next few months, as we re-organise ourselves and focus on the potential gaps in our social safety nets in the future, this will be one area that we will be looking at.

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