At the recent The Edge Retirement Reimagined Forum 2023, former MOH DG Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah and SJMC’s Bryan Lin talked about destigmatising and changing mindsets about aged care.
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00:00 [Music]
00:11 We learned a lot from this pandemic COVID-19.
00:14 When we come in as one,
00:15 the whole government and the whole society came in together,
00:19 working in partnership at every ministry, at every organisation,
00:24 and the private sector, public sector comes together as one.
00:27 I think that is the formula, that is the guiding principle,
00:30 a lesson learned from the pandemic,
00:33 and we need to leverage on this.
00:35 And looking into this principle,
00:38 how can we address now retirement holistically,
00:42 not only from a financial perspective,
00:45 but also a bigger picture of how we can retire.
00:50 At the end of the day, we want a healthcare centre to have a quality in place,
00:55 not the healthcare centre, once upon a time, nursing home,
00:58 you know, we have this impression, poorly managed, etc.
01:02 That's why the public in Malaysia,
01:05 they think that if you send your parents to the nursing home,
01:08 this is a taboo, that means you are not a good son or even a daughter to your parents,
01:16 because you are actually not responsible.
01:22 So we need to change that mindset,
01:24 to make sure that the care centre is one everybody wants to go to.
01:29 Private healthcare services is costly,
01:33 and aged care, either you are an independent living unit,
01:37 assisted living unit, nursing care,
01:39 I think it is not a pure property play.
01:44 It involves the software,
01:50 and it involves the nursing care,
01:53 it involves the doctor, the allied health support,
01:56 it involves some investment in some infrastructure.
02:01 I think the way forward is that,
02:03 one, we have to learn what we have learned from COVID,
02:07 during the pandemic.
02:08 Kita jaga kita, a phrase that Tan Swee really emphasised.
02:13 We have to look after ourselves and look after one another.
02:16 We have to look at self-care.
02:19 Self-care is taking ownership of our health,
02:22 and investing into our health.
02:24 This morning we heard about active management of investment into financial returns,
02:31 but we also have to look at self-care as a way to invest into our future,
02:36 to mitigate the cost of healthcare,
02:38 that will be a burden for us as we age.
02:41 And I think equally important is the cost of $5,000 or $8,000
02:46 for some of these retirement home or villages.
02:49 I think it is prohibitive,
02:52 but I think the reason is that way is because of the investment that's required,
02:58 the infrastructure, the construction cost, the material cost,
03:02 as well as the inflation that is associated with it.
03:05 And honestly, the way we move forward, look at it,
03:11 got to require a paradigm shift.
03:14 At least I can share with you what we believe in our hospital at HJMC.
03:20 We are looking at uberising healthcare.
03:23 Our focus is to bring and change hospital to homes,
03:33 healthcare to health,
03:36 and patient to people.
03:38 [Music]