SINGAPORE:
About 100 seniors have benefitted from a house visit programme initiated by the
Agency for Integrated Care (AIC).
With
support from several community organisations, the pilot that started in 2015
has teams of healthcare professionals visiting seniors with multiple chronic
conditions regularly at their homes to monitor their health and social
well-being.
It
enables seniors to manage their conditions better and reduce unnecessary
hospital admissions.
A senior
who has benefitted from the programme is Mdm Tay. She is diabetic and has
various health conditions, including bilateral visual impairment and a weak
heart. Her heart is unable to pump blood efficiently and this leads to fluid
build-up in her limbs. Mdm Tay also underwent surgery in May to amputate the
toes on her left foot.
Since
February this year, a team from Ang Mo Kio Family Service Centre visits Mdm Tay
at her flat each week.
The team,
comprising a case manager and a support staff, monitors her hospital
appointments, and ensures that she is able to manage on her own daily.
"Back
then, I often took the wrong medication because I can't see clearly,” said Mdm
Tay. “As a result, I was constantly going in and out of the hospital. I was
very frustrated. I wanted to give up on my medication and thought it was better
to just die."
Mdm Tay
said the team motivates her to want to get better. Today, she takes her
medication on time and visits the hospital only for regular check-ups.
Ms
Jocelyn Toh, case manager at COMNET Senior Services at AMKFSC Community
Services, said: "There are opportunities to think of simple ways to help
her resolve this problem. I label the pill boxes, so for example, the ones
without any indication will be the morning dose and the ones with the rubber
band is the afternoon dose. Different indications help her differentiate the
different dosages so she will take her medication correctly."
For frail
seniors like Mdm Tay, who have complex medical conditions and receive little to
no help from their families, case managers are a form of social support. They
also act as a bridge to relevant agencies should they require other forms of
assistance.
"They
are unsure of the community resources they can utilise to help them so what we
do is to come in and help them navigate around the system so they are linked to
the services they require, Ms Toh added.
The aim
of this programme is to empower seniors to live independently. According to
AIC, the number of seniors with complex care needs is set to rise as
Singapore's population ages. Thus, there is a need to hire more case managers.
Mr Ng
Koon Sing, head of COMNET Senior Services at AMKFSC Community Services, said:
"Different sectors are competing for case managers, be it the youth
sector, the family service sector, so there's this challenge of shortage of
manpower where everybody is competing from the same pool."
Case
managers typically have some form of medical background, and this makes the pool
even smaller.
Ms Lee
Ngok Lin, President of Case Management Society Singapore, said: "Most of
the case managers are healthcare professionals. With their healthcare knowledge
and understanding of the healthcare system, it would be easier for them to apply
their knowledge and help the patient more efficiently."
It is
hard to determine how many case managers there are in Singapore, as they serve
various segments of the healthcare industry from hospitals to voluntary welfare
organisations. Her society has about 200 members, a number that has held steady
in recent years, despite Singapore's ageing population.
Ms Lee,
who also heads the case management team at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, added:
"Case management is relatively young in Singapore, so maybe a lot of
people are not aware of case management and what we do.
“With the
ageing population, I can foresee that we will need more case managers, because
the elderly will be more frail as they grow older and have more chronic
conditions. So, they need closer support in the community.”
The
programme is a two-year pilot that began in 2015. AIC is working with the
Health Ministry to evaluate its effectiveness in keeping seniors within the
community, before it decides on whether to expand the programme.
- CNA/xk
No comments:
Post a Comment