Mr Dennis Tan Lip Fong (Hougang): Thank you. Mdm Deputy Speaker. I thank the Minister of State for his answers. Could I ask that the Ministry consider apportioning more resources or the various Ministries apportion more resources to the Active Ageing Centre so that their staff and volunteers can make better efforts to engage seniors who live alone whether in 2-room Flexi flats or in normal 3-room, 4-room flats, where they live alone and especially for those who are not open to community engagement. And in that respect, can we even consider reviewing the law to see how we can improve the access of these Active Ageing Centre offices, staff or volunteers, so that they can actually pay more regular attention, not just like a one off, once a year, or something like this.
I know the Parliamentary Question relates to seniors who pass away, specifically that was mentioned. But what is more important is for us to engage seniors who are living alone, who may be estrange from their families, not close to them and actually before they go start to decline physically, mentally, or if they are suffering from diseases, to even reach out to them and make sure that they be taken care of and if necessary, to even arrange for alternative care before the inevitable will come.
Assoc Prof Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim: Madam, I thank the member for the supplementary question. In fact, if the Member has followed the discussion in this House, as well as what is happening on the ground and if the Member look back, in maybe a decade ago, the whole ecosystem has been enhanced.
Recently, the Ministry of Health (MOH) also shared about Active Ageing Centres (AACs) and I work very closely with the AACs within my constituency as well and I can see that not only resources have been enhanced, but I think what is key is that there are more hands on deck today. And not only those who are paid or employed but the community coming forward. You have the Social Service Agencies (SSAs) coming up with different ideas. Some very innovative ideas to see how we can persuade the seniors to come out to be engaged to be part of the whole process of living well and ageing well, as well.
MOH has shared what is the plan ahead, and in fact, early this year, we updated the Ageing Action Plan, the Live Well, Age Well programme. All this shows that a lot more is being done. But what is key in my view, as I shared earlier, is how we can continue to galvanise the community because, well, ideally no one should die alone. Nevertheless, things happen, for example, you have heart attack and some of the members of the public may live alone, and what is key is as we continue this journey, we strengthen the ecosystem, we look out for one another, we minimise the effects of dying alone, or we minimise the effects of how someone will not be engaged, and at the same time, with the aspiration of how we want them to live and age well, and in the community.
Ministry of Health
9 May 2023
https://sprs.parl.gov.sg/search/#/sprs3topic?reportid=oral-answer-3235
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 