News

Caring for Aging Malaysians

May 2017

Malaysia will be an ageing nation by 2035, when 15 per cent of the populations are classified as senior citizens. A forecast by the Statistics Department revealed that Malaysia’s senior citizen population (aged 60 and above) would round up to 5.6 million by 2035. For the year 2015, statistics showed that there are 2.8 million or 9 per cent of senior citizens, out of the overall population of 31 million people.

The same trend will also be experienced worldwide, according to the Global Health and Aging report presented by the World Health Organization (WHO), “The number of people aged 65 or older is projected to grow from an estimated 524 million in 2010 to nearly 1.5 billion in 2050, with most of the increase in developing countries.” In addition, by 2050, the number of people 65 years or older is expected to significantly outnumber children younger than 5 years of age.

This leads to the question: what are the implications of the aging population on health care? We have all heard the term “Baby Boomer” The first Baby Boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) turned 70 in 2016. By 2030, it is projected that more than 60% of this generation will be managing more than one chronic condition. Managing these chronic conditions, along with a patient’s level of disability, will increase the financial demands on our health care system. The cost increases with the number of chronic conditions being treated, taking into account the expected twice as many hospital admissions Baby Boomers by 2030.

The health care system in this country is primarily geared towards short term care and hospitalization. The elderly with their chronic diseases and problems require long term care. Rehabilitation from acute illness to help return the elderly patient to the level of premorbid function is often lacking in our hospitals. Thus the present health care system is thus inadequate and even inappropriate to service the elderly with their chronic diseases and disabilities.

The trend currently is on prevention and primary health care as hospital based care is increasing in costs. Though Malaysia has quite comprehensive medical and health care services for the general population, special programmes for the aged are lacking. This is in part due to lack of trained personnel in geriatric health care and also a lower priority being given to geriatric care.

Understanding this demand, Tabuan Healthcare Properties established the Tabuan Nursing Healthcare and Nursing Centre located at Tabuan Square, Lorong Keranji 4F, Tabuan Desa Utara. The centre was initiated with the main objective of providing the community with a good standard of private nursing services through 3 main divisions, namely; Care for the Aged, Nursing Centre and Home Nursing.

Equipped with the necessities of a healthcare centre, this centre is headed by Dr Denis Yu, the Director with a team of team of specialist doctors in various fields assisted by experienced and highly qualified nurses. For more information, please call +082-365 433 to speak with our customer service personnel.

(Facebook Release)

 


  Return to News Listing