Fatimah interacts with an elderly residents of the Hun Nam Siang Tng daycare centre in Kuching today. – Photo by Kentigern Minggu
KUCHING (March 29): Sarawak is committed to strengthening social protection and developing a robust support system for the elderly to prepare for demographic shifts, said state Minister for Women, Childhood, and Community Wellbeing Development, Dato Sri Fatimah Abdullah.
She stressed the importance of ensuring that senior citizens in the state can live with dignity, particularly in light of growing concerns over cases of elderly patients being abandoned at hospitals by their families.
“There have been cases where family members leave their elderly family members or relatives at medical facilities and later become unreachable.
“We hope not to see such cases in Sarawak as we want our elderly to age healthily and productively,” she said, highlighting the needs for the senior citizens to be treated with dignity and respect.
She was speaking to reporters when met during a visit to the Sarawak Hun Nam Siang Tng elderly care centre here today.
Fatimah noted that Sarawak is becoming an ageing state, with the proportion of senior citizens in the population steadily rising.
To address this, the state government has engaged a consortium of three universities—Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak, Curtin University Malaysia, and University of Technology Sarawak (UTS)—to conduct research on elderly care facilities.
Additionally, she highlighted that 12 private elderly care facilities have been registered with the Sarawak Social Welfare Department to ensure proper standards, licensing, and regulations.
This initiative is crucial to safeguarding the well-being of vulnerable elderly residents and promoting healthy aging, she said.
Present during the visit were Sarawak Hun Nam Siang Tng Association president Tay Boon Sin and advisor Dato Richard Wee.
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