Welfare aid insufficient for disabled senior citizen
KUCHING: The welfare aid of RM300 per month is barely enough to sustain the livelihood of 65-year- old Lim Ah Heng who suffers from stroke.
Hope Place Kuching founder Kelvin Wan said Lim could not walk since 20 years ago apart from having kidney failure.
“He (Lim) needs need more than the RM300 monthly welfare aid as he has to pay for haemodialysis. On top of that he is suffering from high blood pressure,” he said.
Lim’s brother Ah Seng, 61, is also ill with a heart problem. Ah Seng stays with the older Lim, and that is why the fi xed monthly welfare aid is not enough, Wan added.
“With only a ‘ fixed income of RM300’ (welfare aid), Lim has problems buying adult diapers and special Ensure brand milk powder,” he said.
Wan and his staff members and volunteers discovered all these when handing over rice, cooking oil, salt, sugar, Milo powder, oats, biscuits, instant noodles, diapers and milk powder to Lim’s wife Tan Lee Pheng.
Hope Place Kuching is a non- governmental organisation (NGO) that visits poor and less fortunate families to distribute essential food items. It carries out aid deliveries once every two months because of the many families on its recipients list. Currently the NGO supports more than 170 families.
For more information, members of the public may call Hope Place Kuching at its hotline number 013- 5672775 from 8.30am to 12pm and 2pm to 5pm on Mondays to Fridays, and from 9am to 12pm only on Saturdays.
They may also donate cash to the needy and less fortunate through the NGO by bank-in to Persatuan Kebajikan Harapan Kuching, Maybank account no. 5112- 8900-1160.