SINGAPORE — After moving into Kampung Admiralty in Woodlands last November, Mr Robert Koh has been interacting more with his neighbours, who are all seniors like him.

The 70-year-old also exercises twice a week at the NTUC Health Active Ageing Hub, and enjoys the events held frequently at the community plaza on the ground floor of his public housing block.

He and his wife used to live with their daughter and her family nearby, but now that they have a place of their own, they still get to spend time with their granddaughter, who goes to the childcare centre operated by My First Skool in Kampung Admiralty. Mr Koh picks the girl up in the afternoons and takes care of her till her parents are done with work.

“There are many activities here for us to keep busy,” the retiree told TODAY. “It’s more convenient… and there are three supermarkets in the vicinity, too.”

Kampung Admiralty, located next to Admiralty MRT Station, is a one-stop hub that includes two Housing and Development Board (HDB) blocks designed for seniors aged 55 years old and above. It welcomed its first residents about a year ago.

The 11-storey integrated development was officially opened by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in May. In his National Day Message last week, Mr Lee hailed the “modern kampung” as a “model for future public housing”, as it encourages residents and their families to come together and build up community life.

“HDB will continue to develop other innovative housing concepts, for the young as well as the old, so that future generations can also own their homes and live comfortably and happily in their neighbourhoods,” Mr Lee said.

Kampung Admiralty’s 100 or so studio apartments are fitted with elder-friendly features, including grab bars, slip-proof flooring and retractable clothes-drying racks in the kitchens.

If residents need urgent help, they can activate one of several alarms in their home to notify their neighbours. Their unit number will also flash on an alarm panel located at the lift lobbies.

Almost all of the flats have been taken up so far, with many — such as Mr Koh’s — booked under priority schemes to help older residents live near their married children.

Kampung Admiralty is also the first of 10 similar HDB projects to be built, where childcare and eldercare facilities are co-located within the complex. The childcare centre is situated beside the Active Ageing Hub, along with an outdoor playground and community garden.

The Active Ageing Hub runs programmes such as light exercise sessions every morning, along with centre-based services and home-care services for frail seniors. These include getting them involved in games and activities such as art work.

The two-storey Admiralty Medical Centre in the neighbourhood is another facility catered to the residents, offering specialist outpatient consultations, endoscopy (for examination of the digestive tract) and day-surgery procedures.

IMPROVED HEALTH A ‘MIRACLE’

Madam Linda Ng, 56, a resident who lives minutes away from Kampung Admiralty, found that her health has improved greatly after she began frequenting the place.

The homemaker suffers from various medical conditions, such as spine and liver problems, bodily pain, diabetes and high cholesterol, which began when she got into a serious car accident in 2014.

After joining the Active Ageing Hub early this year, she began eating healthily, exercising, and learning new skills such as sewing and patchwork. Her body aches have eased and from April, she no longer has to go for physiotherapy after four years of treatment.

“My life has changed,” she told TODAY. “I used to get scared and anxious over little things… I stayed home alone with my maid and did not dare to step out. Now, I’ve lost 8kg and my doctor said it was a miracle that my diabetes got so much better.”

Mdm Ng hopes to get her parents a studio apartment in Kampung Admiralty as well, after hearing that there may still be units available. Her 77-year-old father — who lives with her mother in Jurong — has dementia and diabetes, and she believes that living in Kampung Admiralty would be good for him, to help him be more sociable and improve his health.

Like Mdm Ng, another resident in the district, Mrs Vivakaambal Gopal, 72, visit Kampung Admiralty often to keep active.

When TODAY was there on Wednesday (Aug 15), Primary 5 students from Greenwood Primary School were holding activities and mini exhibitions related to their school project work at the community plaza. Mrs Gopal was fashioning a pen holder out of recycled materials such as paper and ribbons. 

She also attends zumba dance-exercise classes and takes care of her plants in the community garden of her HDB block.

“We won’t know (what happens in the future), so why not make our days useful instead of sleeping at home and then soon, you cannot walk? I want to prove that seniors can age well every day,” she said.