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New scheme to allow social workers to handle mentally-incapacitated elderly clients’ finances

SINGAPORE — Seniors who have the financial means but not the mental capacity to arrange for the care they need will get help soon, under a pilot allowing social workers to manage part of their finances.

Recognising that it may not be feasible for seniors who have lost their mental capacity to engage the services of professional deputies and donees to manage small purchases like meals or groceries, the government is testing a new service that allows VWOs to handle their clients' finances. Photo: Cristian Newman/Unsplash

Recognising that it may not be feasible for seniors who have lost their mental capacity to engage the services of professional deputies and donees to manage small purchases like meals or groceries, the government is testing a new service that allows VWOs to handle their clients' finances. Photo: Cristian Newman/Unsplash

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SINGAPORE — Seniors who have the financial means but not the mental capacity to arrange for the care they need will get help soon, under a pilot allowing social workers to manage part of their finances.

Those who qualify for such intervention, called the Community Kin Service, must be at least 60 years old, have no family support, and show signs of declining mental capacity, say, after they have suffered a stroke, or have dementia.

Touch Community Services and Ang Mo Kio Family Service Centre (AMKFSC) Community Services, which serves about 7,000 and 1,000 seniors respectively, are the two voluntary welfare organisations (VWOs) involved in the pilot, which will start early next year and last for one to two years. The VWOs estimate that about 450 of their elderly clients have declining mental capacity.

Social workers need to apply to the Family Justice Courts for permission to handle these seniors’ finances, though funds will only be released to service providers in a “fixed and periodic” manner for healthcare needs and personal or household expenses.

The VWO must also provide annual reports accounting for the use of the seniors’ funds to the Office of the Public Guardian, which registers the Lasting Powers of Attorney that allows people to appoint a “donee” to take care of their legal decisions in the event they lose mental capacity.

Japan and Hong Kong have a similar scheme in place.

Announcing the Community Kin Service on Wednesday (Nov 29), Social and Family Development Minister Desmond Lee noted that mentally incapacitated seniors with enough savings but cannot perform daily transactions face the prospect of being institutionalised prematurely.

“Currently, our VWOs are unable to help them with such financial matters. This hinders the seniors from being able to support themselves at home, and could inadvertently result in premature institutionalisation,” he said, at the opening of the inaugural Asian Family Conference held at Orchard Hotel. “The Community Kin Service allows VWOs to help fill the role that a next-of-kin would typically play in support of a senior.”

With one in 10 persons aged 60 and older in Singapore estimated to have dementia, Mr Lee said the challenge of ageing involving the loss of mental capacity is a “risk (that) is higher than many of us might imagine”. The one-day conference involved about 350 policymakers, practitioners and academics from East Asia and Singapore to discuss trends, policies and practices pertaining to changing family structures and ageing in Asian societies.

Touch and AMKFSC said the Community Kin Service would close a gap in their care plans for seniors with declining mental capacity.

Head of COMNET Senior Services at AMKFSC Community Services, Mr Ng Koon Sing, added that some of these seniors had to resort to tapping charity dollars when their savings were depleted due to their poor management. Seniors who lost their mental capacities might have a poor idea of money, or forget if they have paid for a service or bought an item they needed, he noted.

In one instance, an elderly suffering from dementia who was receiving S$400 in financial assistance monthly would use up the sum in three or four days months on end, but he was not able to remember how he had spent it. The man is now under the care of a nursing home.

Asked what safeguards will be in place for their clients’ money, Mr Ng said: “Internally, we will set up our standard operating procedures. On the backend, the court will be the one which will verify how much we ask for. They will do their due process to see if the amount we request based on the care plan is reasonable.”

The new service, if implemented on a larger scale, will complement a new scheme mooted when the Mental Capacity Act was amended last year that allows unrelated individuals such as lawyers, accountants, and healthcare and social service professionals, to make financial decisions for seniors who do not have a strong family network.

The Ministry of Social and Family Development said that these professional donees and deputies will handle the “more major decisions, such as liquidation of property”. The Community Kin Service, meanwhile, lets VWOs, which are already supporting seniors by coordinating their home care services, arranging regular visits to their homes, and monitoring their medical appointments and medication, do a better job of managing the day-to-day care of elderly patients who have lost mental capacity.

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