'No Pulau Ubin for me.'
Straits Times Forum 29 Apr 10;
MS TAN LEE KHENG: 'My vision of a retirement village is a place where I can live on my own yet when I step out of my home, there are people (eventually friends) of my age to socialise with. Like-minded people who think nothing of telling the same stories over and over. Stories our children are sick of hearing yet again. Play mahjong or computer games, or line-dance with friends, happily laughing at our mistakes, arthritic fingers and stiff bodies. We will be in our league. I expect to be able-bodied, and perhaps take a bus or train to visit my children when I feel like it. Maybe go window shopping or have lunch with friends outside the retirement village. Maybe baby-sit occasionally. A retirement village should give me and my grown children privacy and freedom, and accessibility to each other and facilities. A 365-day dose of beach and nature would be suffocating. So no Pulau Ubin for me.'
'Why not Sentosa?'
MS TAN ENG LIAN: 'Pulau Ubin reminds me of Alcatraz. The one-time island prison off San Francisco, California, was a place where hardcore criminals were banished, ultimately dying a lonely death. If we want a retirement village, why not Sentosa? It is a resort island and who else deserves it more than our senior citizens? While there is peace and quiet in such a village, senior citizens can access a resort brimming with life and bright lights as well. The aged will cherish their golden years even more. Their children and grandchildren will have good reasons to visit them too. A retirement village must be a place where people can look forward to living happily, not a forgotten island where they may feel they have been dumped. Better still, if we provide comfortable homes for the aged, rebuilt and renovated, at all suitable void decks, those who do not live in retirement villages can enjoy the option of living nearer their loved ones.'
'HDB estates should incorporate retirement villages.'
MR SAY KIN TONG: 'I am 52 years old and when I retire I would prefer to live in a retirement village within an HDB estate. As one ages, one prefers living in a community of all ages, not alone with a group of elderly people waiting to see who dies first. HDB estates should incorporate retirement villages so elderly people can live among young families, particularly their own. The villages need not be complicated. The first few levels of blocks in an estate can be designated the village. When elderly citizens are ready to move in, the change will not be traumatic because they will still be in a familiar neighbourhood. The Government will save on land resources as well.'
Retirement villages not best way for Singaporeans
Straits Times Forum 29 Apr 10;
MR JEFFREY Tan ('Retirement village: Pulau Ubin an ideal choice') and Miss Angeline Elysia Tan ('The hope') meant well on April 19 about introducing retirement villages for senior citizens.
Certainly, more can be done for senior citizens to have a meaningful and wholesome life in their twilight years.
But the idea and concept of placing them on an island or in a village is not one that should even be considered, no matter how well we develop such a place with easy accessibility for visits thrown in.
At a time when we are encouraging our young to be filial and look after their ageing parents, conveniently packing their parents off to an island or village is not the solution. Spending quality time with their parents and looking after their welfare is.
And because many today are all too often busy with their career and own family, it makes more sense to live with, or at least be near, their parents.
It may be true that senior citizens will benefit from the peace and tranquillity of an island or a village.
However, by the same token, it will ultimately detach them from their family and the Singapore they worked so hard to help build.
Victor Khoo
