ELDERCARE LEAVE

ELDERCARE LEAVE

10.

Ms Ellen Lee asked the Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports in view of the ageing population whether the Government will consider introducing eldercare leave for working children and funding such leave.

Dr Vivian Balakrishnan: As our population ages, the number of seniors requiring care is expected to increase.

We appreciate that caregiving can be stressful and therefore my Ministry has introduced various initiatives to help this group cope. We started the Caregiver Training Grant in 2007. We are building six more daycare centres for the elderly over the next five years, to add to the existing pool of 22 centres.

My Ministry has also set up the Centre for Enabled Living (CEL) to look into caregiver support and training, as well as to coordinate care for the elderly and disabled. CEL will adopt a family- and senior-centric approach, and will work closely with the Ministry of Health’s Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) to provide services in a coordinated manner across the medical-social care continuum. CEL is now preparing the ground work for its care coordination role. Minister Lim Boon Heng will officially launch CEL tomorrow.

We will continue to encourage companies to implement flexible work arrangements, which will allow employees to balance demands at work, and in their personal life. Employers who can afford to do so can also exercise discretion to grant eldercare leave as part of their personnel benefits. However, the Government will not impose mandatory eldercare leave.