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Insurance needed to cover dementia care

Singapore society is rapidly ageing. The elderly are living longer, and increasing numbers are succumbing to dementia. There is currently no insurance plan for this degenerative disease.

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Marjorie Tan

Singapore society is rapidly ageing. The elderly are living longer, and increasing numbers are succumbing to dementia. There is currently no insurance plan for this degenerative disease.

Considering the prohibitive cost of long-term institutional care, is the Government embarking on financial support for afflicted families who do not qualify for public funding, for them to cope with this growing social phenomenon?

How are homes for the elderly supported to raise the quality of care they provide, particularly in the environmental design and activities conducted?

Retirement villages cater for the able-bodied elderly, who are independent. On the other hand, there are those with dementia who are almost vegetative and wholly reliant on carers.

At private rates, homes for the aged are costly: S$3,000 plus a month, on average. These are no holiday villas but institutions to care for those who have lost the ability to feed, clean or clothe themselves, and who usually need chronic medical care and medication.

Should a hard-pressed carer and his or her family fund such expensive institutional care when this incurable disease, like other unpredictable ones, strikes one of their members?

One’s hard-earnt money should be set aside responsibly for retirement needs. The average Singaporean‘s savings would be depleted unless a funding scheme is implemented to take care of expenditure incurred in long-term nursing home care.

What subsidies are there for those who do not qualify for government funding? Does the Government plan to pool finances for the afflicted and their families in the way an insurance policy provides?

No one wishes to succumb to dementia or be a liability, yet it can strike unexpectedly and becomes progressively harder to care for at home.

Neighbours also suffer when a patient loses vocal control and shrieks or sings gibberish all day and night. Such a persistent condition calls for institutional care if family members are to get their sleep and function the next day.

How can various age groups prepare themselves should they one day succumb to dementia, so that their families can be spared a potential financial burden?

Would the Government consider channelling tax revenues or setting up a collective fund that every working adult can contribute towards and draw from as insurance to pay for institutional stay in the event that carers can no longer look after their stricken elderly at home?

Of course, only a patient’s geriatrician should give a referral to such institutions.

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