When I was a medical student in the early 1970s, I was in a welfare subcommittee. One day, I joined a few members to deliver rations to an old folks’ home in Peck San Teng, which became Bishan.

The van took us to the top of a hillock in a Chinese cemetery. Residents in the zinc-roof abode were lying on wooden beds with holes so that their excrement was collected in the metal pots underneath. Diapers were not used then.

Fourteen years ago, I started work in a voluntary welfare organisation (VWO) nursing home, with gardens and koi ponds. It was heavenly compared with the one I saw when I was a medical student.

As the years went by and I myself aged, I told my colleagues that I would not want to spend my twilight years in this nursing home.

The reasons are what were mentioned in the article “‘There’s nowhere to be you’, says TV host who lived for 2 weeks in nursing home” (Nov 15, Channel NewsAsia).

It is not a home but an institution, with residents in uniform attire and conforming to other regimens. The decision-makers in nursing homes are constrained, mainly by financial and manpower factors, in improving the quality of care.

Residents have no say in the management of their nursing home. As the ageing population gets more educated and knows the importance of privacy in preserving dignity, the current state of VWO nursing homes available to them would be dismal.

Though more nursing homes are now being built with higher storeys, I still think they are jails for the aged. It depresses me.