SINGAPORE — Seniors who need money for assistive devices or for specialised transport and consumables can now receive funds in about one week — half the time it previously took — after submitting an application under the Seniors’ Mobility and Enabling Fund (SMF) at any of 114 community-based service providers.

Previously, seniors were only able to apply at the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) and had to wait at least two weeks for approval. Since this month, however, they have been able to apply at restructured hospitals, day rehabilitation centres, senior activity centres and home-based healthcare providers, which can approve the applications independently.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a visit to elderly residents at Marine Terrace yesterday, Minister of State (Health and Manpower) Amy Khor said the partnership with community-based service providers will help seniors get the funds and support they need “more quickly and directly”.

“(It) also means we can ensure a smoother and seamless transition of care for our elderly as they move from an acute hospital to community-based care,” said Dr Khor, adding that the AIC is working to encourage more community partners to come on board.

The AIC has also done away with household-means testing and simplified the assessment for those who require assistive devices: Seniors living in a three-room Housing and Development Board flat or smaller, according to their NRIC address, will automatically qualify for the 90 per cent subsidy for devices that cost below S$500.

More assistive devices like motorised wheelchairs, spectacles and commodes have also been added to the list of items eligible for subsidies. Consumables such as catheters, milk feeds and diapers for frail seniors receiving home-based healthcare services and for patients under the AIC’s Singapore Programme for Integrated Care for the Elderly are now covered under the SMF, too.

Transport subsidies have also been extended to seniors attending Ministry of Health-funded day rehabilitation centres, dementia daycare centres and renal dialysis centres.

The fund was launched in 2011 with S$10 million to provide holistic, comprehensive support for seniors to remain mobile and live independently. To date, about 3,100 have benefitted from it and S$900,000 has been utilised.

Since the enhancements were rolled out on July 1 — after the Government announced during Budget 2013 that it was increasing the SMF to S$50 million — some 700 seniors have benefited from it.

There has also been a 130 per cent increase in the number of applications received in the past month compared to June, and about 300 applications are expected each month from now.

Mr Goh Chok Tong, Emeritus Senior Minister and a Member of Parliament for Marine Parade GRC, who was also at the visit, said he was considering starting community integrated care for senior citizens by gathering the community, families and the Government.

The programme, which would be piloted in Marine Parade, could entail financial education, active ageing programmes and placing the active but retired “young old” in the ward to take care of older residents, he said.

The aim, Mr Goh said, is to “remove this worry of getting old in Singapore”. By making Marine Parade “the best place to grow old in”, Singapore will, “by extension”, be a good place to grow old in, he said.