Dear TRS,
I would like to expose some practical truths behind the government’s “pioneer generation” package.
Although I am not a volunteer, I do spend occasional weekends donating and helping out with a local organisation called “A Packet of Rice”. It is not really a charity per se, but more of a volunteer group run by volunteers to collect food items from sponsors then distribute them to the needy elderly in one and two room flats.
In the course of my work, I realised that many of these elderly folk are quite pitiful in that they live alone and have no next-of-kin. After taking to many of them, they seem to have a rather common story – they toiled in manual conditions when they are younger only to be abandoned by their children or have spouses have since passed on.
For many of these people, the most pressing need is not some top-up to Medisave. Sure, there may be people in their 80s who need medical attention, but surely not those who are still very healthy when they are 70. It may be very hard to believe that this is happening in Singapore, but some of them are still living in filth conditions with toilets that look worse than that from rural areas of a third world country.
Some cannot even afford to buy food and have nothing left after government hand-outs. What they really need is additional hand-outs to help them meet the day-to-day costs of living. This seems to be grossly missing from the government when they decided to honour the pioneer generation and has been going on for years!
It seems like the PAP has missed the whole point – what the poor senior citizens need is really some help for them for them to meet their daily expenses. Since they have no problem with things like a $10 million “integration fund” and $200 million to subsidies to foreign students, surely they can afford to give some money to these elderly people?
After all, what is the use of having more in Medisave when you cannot touch it? If you want to show that you care, send the ministers down to understand the problems of these elderly and allow them some dignity by giving them cash so they can at least afford to have decent meals.
Lee
TRS Contributor