Improving care for the aged

I READ the report “There’s no compassion for the elderly” ( The Star, Aug 6) with deep regret and sorrow.

As chairman of the Association for Aged Care Operators of Malaysia, I would like to address this issue which has not received due attention despite the fact that we are set to become an ageing nation by the year 2030.

The overall care for our elderly citizens is still at substandard level. The main problem faced by service providers in the aged care industry is the lack of skilled manpower to professionally provide loving and tender care for the elderly.

They have to compete for qualified caretakers with others in the industry, especially private facilities run by businesses which provide better salaries and more conducive working conditions.

All operators face tremendous hurdles as running a home for the elderly is basically like operating a rehabilitation centre. It requires a lot of financial resources.

The solution to this issue requires holistic and synergistic teamwork among government agencies, operators, academics, psychologists, occupational therapists, policy makers, developers, psychiatrists and nursing providers.

We definitely need to sit down and come up with a constructive model that would benefit society as a whole.

I would also like to suggest that the government sets up a training academy or provides grants to operators to run training programmes in caring for the elderly.

A twinning programme with existing colleges or universities specialised in nursing and geriatric care would be ideal.

Caring for the elderly has to be perceived as a vibrant and professional career. As such, adequate incentives have to be structured to lure more manpower and investors into the aging care industry.

If childcare centres need to be made available in various places, so do daycare centres for the elderly. These must be affordable and placed in areas surrounded by familiar environments such as mosques, temples or parks to prevent the elderly from being neglected or totally institutionalised 24 hours a day.

If the government and society as a whole do not take heed of this problem now, we will see the closure of more homes and abandonment of the elderly.