COMMENT Within the span of two years, we have visited over 30 nursing homes in the Klang Valley and Negri Sembilan, while trying to find one that is suitable and willing to accept my relative, a 64-year-old dementia patient.

 

This is my general observation. From the better to the worse ones, I think we have seen all that there is for elder folks in this country.

 

My conclusion is this: growing old can be expensive, especially for the children, and with the deplorable conditions one finds in the nursing homes in the country, life can be quite miserable.

 

Because the children have to work, it is becoming increasingly popular for the elderly folks to be taken care of by nursing homes. Unlike the homes run by charities, nursing homes are commercial entities, but their conditions may not be any better – in fact, sometimes, even worse!

 

Most of the nursing homes that we visited are either overcrowded or badly maintained. The nursing home that my relative was placed in Seremban, for example, had 33 residents in one single-storey bungalow house.

 

There were only a few Indonesian maids handling the entire workload and none of them understands the proper way to handle an aggressive dementia patient like my relative. What an irony this is, especially when the homes are supposedly known to be nursing homes for the aged.

 

Often, money is paid, but there is little care given to the residents. They sometimes end up as living vegetables, waiting for their death. Shocking, but it has to be said!

 

When my friend and I visited the home to see my relative, I was shocked with the condition of the nursing home. The moment I stepped into the living room, there were some 20 pairs of sad eyes staring at me. The television was turned on, but no one was watching.

 

My relative was tied down to a chair and soaking wet with urine because the maids were too busy with their daily routines.

 

In another nursing home, also in Seremban, another relative in her late 50s had developed bedsores that eventually left a hole in the buttock.

 

Expensive getting old

 

We have also made a special trip all the way to Telok Panglima Garang, Selangor, to check out the home for Alzheimer’s patients. It is run by the Alzheimer’s Disease Foundation of Malaysia (ADFM).

 

The place was spacious and airy. There were not that many patients there. A qualified nurse was in charge of the home. We quite like the place, except that it was too far away for any family member to visit on a weekly basis.

 

The fee, however, was also very steep. It is a minimum of RM3,000 per person per month. As this is a long-term commitment for the family, it was hardly affordable for the average Malaysian home.

 

Some of the nursing homes in Petaling Jaya are charging anything from RM1,500 to RM2,000 per resident, depending on the case. At RM2,000 per month, in a year, it works out to be at least RM24,000, not taking into consideration, the medicine as well, which can easily come up to another RM1,000 or a total of RM36,000 per annum for every one elderly person placed in the nursing home.

 

If there are two children sharing out the cost, each would have to fork out RM18,000 per annum, but what if there is only one child earning an average income of RM5,000 per month? Almost 60 percent of his income would go to the nursing home and medicine!

 

The tax reliefs provided by the government can hardly be considered a relief at all. With figures in the four digits staring at you, no one would even feel a relief by the small amount of savings on the taxes. It is the failure of the government in power for the last 57 years to provide a good welfare plan for the aged citizens of this country.

 

What is scary is that we have a big ageing population, and soon, many of us will be entering into our twilight years. Will we have enough savings to pull us through, or will we be a burden to our children?

 

Costly but poorly maintained

As pointed out by a Malaysiakini reader, there is some truth in what was said: “(With the) BN regime, which cares for nobody but its members, cronies and paid supporters, Malaysia is a disaster for the aged and all other honest citizens.”

 

I can only hope that the situation will change if there is sufficient political will to change. Otherwise, with the current inflation, the cost of nursing care will be several times higher than what it is today.

 

In one of the nursing homes on Jalan Pisang, Selangor, which we had surveyed, the condition of the home was simply deplorable. The ceiling had a hole in it, and the rooms were stinking with urine.

The caretaker told us that they were in the midst of relocating elsewhere, but unimpressed, we just struck it off our list.

 

In another home in SS3, Petaling Jaya, there was no proper medical cabinet and the medicines were not placed under lock and key, which explains why my relative had swallowed about 100 pills belonging to other residents!

 

Understandably, being new, besides the operator himself, the home has only one foreign worker who has to work seven days a week, besides multi-tasking.

Based on my conversation with the worker himself, he could not take it any more.

 

In most of these homes, there are no qualified nurses. In one nursing home, where a 90-year-old man had passed away due to kidney and liver shutdown, the caretaker had apparently become the in-house doctor to prescribe medicine.

Initially, it was said that the old man had died of dehydration; however, I am told that biopsy that was carried out showed that there was apparently an overdose of medicine.

 

Who looks over the elderly?

In a number of nursing homes, there are no proper contingency plans should a fire break out.

Neither are there any precautions taken to prevent an amok, especially since most kitchens knives or scissors are not locked away.

 

I wonder if there is any specific ministry or local authority checking on these nursing care homes on a periodic basis.

 

While nursing homes, whether legal or illegal, are mushrooming, it is hardly a surprise if someone told me that such monitoring is not carried out periodically to ensure that homes are properly managed.

 

It is my intention to lobby for the Nursing Care Act to be expedited and passed in parliament.

It is time that the government do something to improve the nursing standards of the nursing homes in this country.

 

Unless the pressure comes from the top, we will not see much improvement to the existing nursing care industry for patients.

Part 1: Malaysia not ready for ageing population

Part 3 tomorrow

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.