Ministry Starts Service To Provide Voluntary Home Care For The Aged

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 1 (Bernama) -- The Women, Family and Community Development Ministry has introduced a Home Help Service to provide home care for the aged through trained volunteers.
Minister Datuk Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, Saturday said the programme would provide support services to enable the aged to live with family members or continue to live in the community.
The volunteers would help with the daily needs of those who lived alone or were alone because their family members were at work, she said when launching the programme in conjunction with National Senior Citizens Day 2005 at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre here.
Shahrizat said the programme could be fully implemented if more individuals volunteered their services to care for the aged who needed their service.
She said volunteers would be trained and guided by the Social Welfare Department and voluntary organisations such as the Peninsular Malaysia Council for Welfare Centres, Malaysian Gerontology Association and Malaysian Usiamas Association.
Shahrizat also said the government would complete the review of the National Senior Citizens Action Plan by year-end to evaluate and analyse the effectiveness of its programmes and activities.
The review would suggest new strategies that were more integrated and effective to meet the current situation, she added.
The 14th National Senior Citizens Day 2005, themed "Active Senior Citizens, Productive Life", is organised by the ministry.
It was attended by about 2,000 people including the aged from several welfare bodies and representatives of government agencies.