Holistic elderly care: The future is now (Amended)
There's urgent need to innovate ways to deliver healthcare services.
THE world is growing old. More people are ageing, ageing lonely and ageing with declining mental and physical abilities. Longevity has become like a slow-burning fuse for governments, with the potential to blow up budgets, pressurise healthcare systems and tear apart families.
Society appears unprepared to deal with this dynamic. Yet, combined with declining birth rates, it will only accelerate in the years to come. One quarter of Japan's population is already over 65 while in Australia, people older than 65 will outnumber those younger than 14 by 2030.
Singapore shares these problems. Life expectancy at birth here has reached 82.6 years in 2014 -- a 7.3-year increase from 1990. By 2030, citizens older than 65 will have more than doubled from the current level to 960,000, of which 92,000 will live alone. This drives an urgent need to innovate how we deliver healthcare services to the elderly.
BT is now on Telegram!
For daily updates on weekdays and specially selected content for the weekend. Subscribe to t.me/BizTimes
Columns
‘Competition for talent’ a poor excuse to keep key executives’ pay under wraps
OCBC should put its properties into a Reit and distribute the trust’s units to shareholders
Why a stronger US dollar is dangerous
An overstimulated US economy is asking for trouble
Too many property agents? Cap commissions on home sales
Time to study broadening of private market access