Helping Caregivers
by Suhaila Usuludin ~ October 5th, 2007. Filed under: Archived, Community.In today’s article in The Straits Times (re: Help is at hand for family caregivers by Radha Basu), it featured several epitome of middle-aged as well as aged caregivers. Numbers of caregivers will increase in future in the advent of the aging population. The recent events such as workshops for caregivers provided by AWWA etc, which were organised during the recent Caregivers’ Week, were also mentioned. This is to promote and educate caregivers on the availability of support and care for them as well as their ailing loved ones.
However, one of the concerns is the financial aspect. Prices of such services should be affordable and further subsidised to be beneficial to more individuals. Another concern is caregivers has the thinking that if they put their loved ones to a day centre or respite care, they appear to be abandoning them. Hence, educating caregivers on this aspect is useful, especially when the care they are providing is a long-term one. Their health is as important as their loved ones too.
In my opinion, services should be readily available and accessible. And from this aspect, we have been gearing to theright direction by having services in the community such as Family Service Centres in some void decks in the neighbourhood.
Secondly, sometimes caregivers may find that there is no time to go for those support groups, events etc as there will be no one to take care of their loved ones. Hence, services can liaise with an experienced volunteer group to take care of them while caregivers attend such seminars or workshops.
Thirdly, how about foreign caregivers such as maids who take care of an ailing individual? I haven’t really do my research on services available for them. Do existing services cater for them too?
Fourthly, is there sufficient trained professionals to carry out the services?
These are all my opinions. Further research have not been done prior to this article. Hence, for more information on the services for caregivers, you may click on the following URLs.
Asian Women’s Welfare Association: http://www.awwa.org.sg/
Touch Community Services: http://www.tcs.org.sg/
ECON Healthcare: http://www.econhealthcare.com/
Pacific Healthcare: http://www.pachealthholdings.com/