Jan 13, 2008
Slipping through the social safety net
By Braema Mathi, Senior Correspondent
BOTH held respectable jobs in their lifetime - the late Mr Wong Tong Seng, 82, was a social worker while his wife, Madam Ngai Hong Chee, 80, was a schoolteacher.
They were portrayed as a generous, friendly and caring couple with two lovely children by a former neighbour and family friend, Ms Toh Paik Choo, in her column in The New Paper.
But on Jan 4, police found two decomposing bodies in their five-room executive flat in Lorong Ah Soo - that of Mr Wong on the living room floor and that of his 50-year-old daughter Ju Ling in the bedroom.
Madam Ngai, living amid a mess of newspapers and food wrappers, was convinced the two were asleep.
How did this happen to a family that had no financial problems, lived in an executive flat and would have had the means to pay for home help and other services?
How did they end up the same way as the 'Home Alone Elderly', whose deaths have been similarly discovered too late and described in terms of the stench of rotting bodies?
Every year, at least one case of decomposing bodies belatedly discovered makes the headlines.
But most of them are the elderly destitute who die in their one- and two-room flats alone. Often, they are on some welfare scheme such as Personal Assistance or on befriender services provided by voluntary welfare organisations and RCs.
Somehow, there is a community link to them.
For the record, the 2005 General Household Survey found that there were 20,907 people aged 65 who lived alone. Of these, 8,020 were aged 75 and above.
Abridged.
SOURCE: straitstimes
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Many elderly who live on their own, have adult children. However, the adult children may be so busy with their own lives that they seldom contact or visit the elderly parents. Where are the children? Where are the neighbors?
Bring back the nuclear family! Probably, easier said that done.
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