HOME MEDICAL CARE FOR THE ELDERLY

Mr Philip Tan Tee Yong asked the Minister for Health, in view of a larger population of the elderly by the year 2000 and beyond, whether provisions can be made to cater for medical care and/or treatment for the less mobile elderly to be carried out in their homes.

The Minister of State for Health (Mr Yeo Cheow Tong)(for the Minister for Health): Mr Speaker, Sir, I will answer on behalf of my Minister.

The Ministry of Health has already begun to provide community-based health care services for the elderly.

The Ministry has been working closely since 1976 with the Home Nursing Foundation (HNF) to provide home nursing care for the elderly. The Ministry has been providing nurses for the HNF to visit the home-bound elderly, and to provide medical and nursing care and rehabilitation. The nurses also teach family members how to care for the elderly in their homes. This will be stepped up.

The HNF will also work with other organizations to increase the range of services provided so that nursing care for the elderly and the chronic sick may be increasingly provided in the home.

In addition to home nursing services, the HNF is working with grassroots organizations to set up Senior Citizens' Health Care Centres to provide day-care, rehabilitation, health education and health screening for the elderly who are mobile and semi-mobile. Two centres have already been set up in the constituencies of Kuo Chuan and Kampong Ubi. Within the next five years, 10 more centres will be established.

Mr Jeyaretnam: Sir, will the Minister of State say whether there has been any change in the announced Government decision - I think it was in March this year and perhaps March last year - that the Government had no plans to build homes for the aged sick? I ask this in view of the chronic shortage of beds for the aged sick who are non-ambulant and who are confined to stay in bed.

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: The Ministry has announced plans to set up community hospitals. The community hospitals will provide beds for the chronic sick who require hospitalization. The community hospitals will also cater for those who are sick but who do not require the intensive care that is provided in the acute hospitals.