Ultimately, we want seniors to be engaged and connected with their friends and families, which is key to keeping healthy. We would like to make it easier for seniors and families to access available care services and resources in the community.
The AACs are expanding the quality and range of their programmes and adapting their offerings to suit the preferences of seniors living in the vicinity. To make it easier for seniors to join in, most AACs also extend these programmes at community spaces, like PA's Residents' Network.
I am told that seniors can participate in classes and activities, and there are also programs which have been proven to help seniors to age well physically and cognitively.
Take learning as an example. The National Silver Academy (NSA) offers a diverse range of courses at about 60 AACs, ranging from topics like health and wellness, financial literacy, to information technology and science. There are also courses for seniors to pick up practical skills, like taking professional photos or floral arrangements. Most of these courses held at the AACs are affordable and around three-quarters of them are eligible for SkillsFuture credits.
Mr Yip Hon Weng asked about our plans for the roll-out of AACs, our outreach efforts, especially for those who might be socially isolated and how our initiatives can help to foster intergenerational bonding. I will address these points below.
We are scaling up our network of AACs. Since the implementation of the AAC service, we have grown to 157 AAC centres and have seen a steady increase in seniors engaged yearly – from 17,000 in 2021 to more than 49,000 seniors in 2022. We will do more and expand the network of AACs to 220 by the end of 2025. This means that by 2025, eight in 10 seniors will have access to AAC activities near their homes. AACs serve all seniors regardless of housing type. Therefore, if you have seniors among your loved ones, especially those living on their own, please encourage them to join a nearby AAC.
Secondly, under Age Well, we envision all seniors to be supported within the community, regardless of whether they live alone or with family. This is where the community is key. We have started this community effort. Together with volunteer ambassadors, the Silver Generation Office has engaged more than 330,000 seniors in the past fours years through house visits, including those who live alone or may have no family. They help to connect the seniors to community events or activities organised by AACs, such as communal dining.
As such, in addition to participating in activities at the AACs, we also hope for our seniors to join in our efforts in reaching out to other seniors in the community, together with their family and friends.
Let me share about Mdm Yuling Siah. For about eight years now, Mdm Siah has been actively reaching out to fellow seniors in the community through home visits and telephone engagements. Mdm Siah says that she finds it especially meaningful when she has good conversations with the people she reaches out to, who have now become her friends. And Mdm Siah is 72 years old!
Her spirit has caught on and now her daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law, have also joined in. We are happy that Mdm Siah is finding such meaning in her senior years and their volunteering has fostered and strengthened inter-generational bonds across the family.
Ultimately, we want our communities to be places where seniors gather with friends, keep active and stay healthy, starting with AACs.
Thirdly, we will enable seniors to be active and move around their neighbourhoods with ease.
We will enhance our infrastructure. The Ministry of National Development (MND) and the Ministry of Transport (MOT) will be making our flats, neighbourhoods and streets more senior-friendly through EASE 2.0, the upgrading of selected older precincts and MOT's Friendly Streets initiative. I am sure Members have seen how Silver Zones and the lifts at Pedestrian Overhead Bridges bring much joy to our seniors.
We will also make enhancements to the home environment. Dr Tan Wu Meng and Mr Yip Hon Weng would be happy to note that we will also introduce in-flat fall detectors to provide a peace of mind for families with seniors.
While we want seniors to be able to age in the community, with their families and friends, we recognise that families caring for seniors with care needs may face additional stresses. Therefore, we will do more to support these families in caring for their loved ones.
We have increased access to home medical care and improved affordability.
Today, the Government provides up to 80% means-tested subsidies to patients for home care services such as Home Medical, Home Nursing and Home Therapy. Since October 2023, MediSave500/700 and Flexi-MediSave schemes have been extended to homebound patients receiving home medical care from MOH-funded providers.
Dr Tan Wu Meng and Ms Mariam Jaafar asked about allaying costs beyond medical expenses. MOH's primary focus is to ensure healthcare services are affordable for all. Our mainstream financing Subsidies, MediShield Life, MediSave, MediFund (S+3Ms) framework, is thus focused on covering acute care, primary care, as well as long-term care services.
Nevertheless, we recognise that there are ancillary costs associated with caregiving and that health and social care are closely related. Hence, MOH has targeted grant schemes to better support families to defray other caregiving expenses, especially for the lower-income. This includes the Medical Escort and Transport (MET) services to help frail seniors attend medical appointments or travel to Senior Care Centres, the Home Caregiving Grant and Seniors' Mobility and Enabling Fund. We will continue to monitor and review. We try to help, but there is a limit to how much we can cover. Expanding scope of our financing will further push up national healthcare expenditure and ultimately result in a greater burden on people. To better support families and caregivers within the community, we will improve existing services and pilot new care models, as Dr Tan Wu Meng, Mr Yip Hong Weng and Mr Henry Kwek have suggested.
