Develop palliative care services

THERE are many views on the woes of people in their old age. Life is certainly very tough for many people, due to the high cost of living. Many families need double incomes and have to send their young children to day care centres.

As such, many families are forced to send their aged relatives to homes for their own safety and welfare, especially the disabled.

However, they must call and visit the elderly as often as possible.

They must take them home occasionally, especially on festive occasions, which will make the elderly happy.

My wife and I are 69 years old and are living alone as our children are residing in Sydney.

Fortunately, we are in good health and both are able to drive and do our own thing.

We know that one day that we will be staying in a home when we are unable to look after ourselves.

The good homes are expensive and we cannot afford them as we spent a large sum of money to educate our children.

I wanted to stay in a place where there are affordable health care services with a good environment, but the good communities for the elderly are developed by the private sector and are not affordable for many ordinary people.

I wanted to move to away from the Klang Valley to a less developed area where there is fresh air and things are cheaper, but security is a big concern for my wife and I.

Therefore, we hope that the Government will look into developing affordable, well managed communities in areas like Bentong, etc for the elderly.

Palliative care is one area which is being neglected and is inadequate to meet the demands in future, as our country is going to be an aged one soon.

Palliative care services will not only meet a great demand in Malaysia, but elderly people in the surrounding countries are also looking for such professional services.

Therefore, we can hit two birds with one stone by providing efficient palliative care for our elderly and at the same time develop a palliative tourist service.

We hope medical institutions will have more courses in palliative care to meet the demand in future.

We hope that people will adopt a healthy lifestyle to stay healthy in old age. This will ensure that they can enjoy their golden years happily.

In fact, there are many joys in old age like enjoying holidays, seeing your children getting married and welcoming new members of the family with the birth of babies.

People should plan to have sufficient savings and have good health to have happy golden days.

THOMAS FOO Subang Jaya