Cheryl Chan Wei Ling
Singapore
“I note that Singapore has been pursing discussions with multiple countries over the past few years, regarding these cooperation activities. Will the Government be able to provide an update on the status of these cross-border discussions and whether they are progressing as expected, and aligned with our infrastructure plans and timelines?”
“Speaker, I have one supplementary question for the Minister of State. I want to ask the Minister of State, given the fact that we do this environmental impact study, will there be a study that will be conducted for every single oil spill and, if so, how long would the monitoring period be?”
“Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Senior Minister of State. As we go for more resource- and energy-efficient models of agri-tech production, would the Ministry consider taking a more active stand, beyond just grants, to look at areas of R&D, scaling and commercialisation?”
“Speaker, I have a supplementary question for the Minister. I agree with the Minister that these software systems are relatively complex and, generally, you do not just have a single supplier supplying to the overall system.”
“I have got a supplementary question for the Senior Parliamentary Secretary. From now till when the official regulation is in place is still some time away. For home owners, they would not have a means to be able to detect formaldehyde levels because they would not know.”
“Thank you, Mr Speaker. I have one supplementary question for the Senior Minister of State. I recognise the challenges and headwinds that the Senior Minister of State has mentioned, but the reality is beyond just capability building and the grants that are given.”
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“Mr and Mrs Salleh usually begin their morning by sending their grandchildren to the nursery at the void deck of their HDB block. After this, they will head to the hub to meet Mr Goh as they have been volunteering at the elderly care centre located in the hub. This elderly care centre is managed by the VWO with healthcare professionals, but the difference is that it is widely operated by volunteers made up of residents, many of whom are also seniors living within this estate. Like other volunteers, when first inducted to the care centre, the Sallehs are trained by the professionals. They feel that they have personally benefitted, as these ongoing training sessions and practical experiences also help them raise awareness of how to better care for themselves as they age. With education and support from these healthcare professionals and volunteers, Mr Goh has been more disciplined going through and following through with his treatment. The social service helpdesk that is co-located at the hub enables some of the needy residents like Mr Goh to actually seek for advice, understand some of the schemes that are available and also to seek help with applications if required. Mdm Lee, who had not been out of her home for a while, is really intrigued by many activities that are happening at the hub. She gets to socialise and learn more about what is taking place in other parts of Singapore and some of our policies through the explanation from the trained staff, our volunteers and also her local advisor. Moving forward, being illiterate and unable to read the papers will not stop her from knowing and learning broadly. But what excites her most is her newfound job, to become a part-time cook and to prepare nutritional food for the children at the nearby childcare centre.”
“Various services from the VWOs, like the day-care activities and training, the healthcare partners who manage elderly care centres and the Government agencies with their social service helpdesk will be co-located at this hub. Additionally, the constituency office, together with the social enterprises, can coordinate the resources available within the community and can allocate these resources accordingly for employment, training and for volunteer work. Let me now give a quick introduction to some of these residents who live in this community. Mr and Mrs Salleh, both aged 62. Mr Salleh is a former school teacher who retired about seven years ago and Mrs Salleh is a housewife. They have three children − two sons who are married, while their daughter is single. One of their sons lives within walking distance from them and they Page: 48 have two children who are attending nursery with childcare. Mr Goh, aged 50, is working odd jobs as he has some health issues requiring regular treatment. As he is single, he needs to continue working in order to afford his daily expenses and medical bills. Mdm Lee, aged 76, has five children but none of them lives with her. After her spouse passed away about three years ago, she has been a little depressed and has not left home much until our volunteers engaged her and started bringing her to our Community Club activities. Mrs Soh is a stay-at-home mother who is a caregiver for her two school-going children and also her father-in-law. Her father-in-law is still healthy and very mobile. He is very much interested in music and likes to interact with others during his younger days when he was working as a producer. So, below is an example of what their usual day is like within the community.”
“They want to have awareness of their health conditions and being financially capable to seek the necessary medical treatment and with the discipline to follow through. For their caregivers, they hope to have personal awareness leading to better preventive care for themselves and also how best to play the role of being a caregiver and having a larger community network to support caregiving – from volunteers, healthcare options and financial support – and for the support group to provide mutual sharing and learning. One way which I suggest we can help meet these needs and aspirations is to develop integrated social hubs for our seniors at the community level − "integrated" in the sense that we bring many of the social activities into one location, one place that caters to the needs and aspirations of our seniors. To help see how this may work in practice, let me describe how a day would be like in an integrated social hub. To begin, we start with the familiar. Site these integrated social hubs at our Community Clubs. Why? Presently, many of our Community Clubs are not extensively utilised during the weekdays. At the same time, we face space constraints in accommodating more facilities at the HDB void decks. As the Community Clubs today are much better equipped with facilities and they already serve many functions, we could consider enhancing their functionality and leverage the infrastructure to serve as an integrated social hub. The Community Club becomes an integrated social hub during the weekdays and continues with its usual outreach activities in the nights and on weekends.”
“From their feedback, many of these seniors remain at home not to care for their grandchildren but because they have no alternatives. Many choose not to go out as they do not wish to spend much since they no longer have an active income. Unfortunately, for some of our seniors, their ageing conditions also deteriorate after their spouses have passed on. It may seem surprising, but surveys show that these lonely seniors are not living alone. In fact, many of them actually live with their families. However, they feel isolated Page: 47 as they have little communication with their children who often work long hours or they do not have activities to be mentally and physically preoccupied with. Over time, such isolation has detrimental effects on their health and, naturally, increases their healthcare costs. Given where we are today and a future with more seniors, what should we do to ensure that they have a meaningful life? I believe that, first and foremost, we need to consider the needs and aspirations of our seniors and their caregivers. Let me touch on some known needs and/or aspirations of these groups. The first one being the seniors. I think many of them wish to continue to be active contributors of the society. Some want to be part of the workforce. Others actually require activities to have a regular routine. Some want to be active and positive contributors, for example, being volunteers or fulfilling dreams that they were not able to pursue previously, having no time for it. They want to have a social network that provides mental and physical support, one that encourages communication and channels to seek assistance, and caregiving beyond just their family network.”
“Mdm Speaker, in his Address, the President highlighted that by 2030, one in four Singaporeans will be aged 65 years or above. A critical question then is: how do we want our society to age? How prepared are we to manage and deal with not just the economic consequences of a rapidly ageing population but, perhaps, more importantly, the social implications of a greying society? In my conversations with my residents, dialogues with VWOs and also with healthcare professionals, a striking observation here is that our seniors often feel they are unable to integrate within the community post-retirement and has a tendency to be or to feel isolated. Studies have also shown that many of our seniors wish to continue being a part of the community, actively involved in one way or another and, to some extent, the broader society. Understandably, this helps in improving their self-esteem and builds confidence even as they age. This being so, whether there are choices readily available to them is thus something we need to focus on. In Singapore, we have encouraged our seniors to remain in the workforce for a longer period and introduced the concept of Lifelong Employability. The Government has also encouraged the tripartite partners to enhance job opportunities and employability for our mature workers. Various grants are available to companies to tap on to redesign jobs, handle age management and so on. But the impetus to take up the grants has remained relatively low. This could be attributed to a lag on the employers' mindset and also the general work culture that we have here. We still do not easily associate having experienced older workers with a positive value. What then are the implications to those seniors who wish to but cannot be gainfully employed at a mature age?”