Who will care for the carers?

MALAYSIA is making progress in supporting mothers and families caring for children – for decades, help has been slowly increasing and now includes things like child care help and tax breaks, among others.

But we don’t offer the same sort of support – or any at all, really – for those caring for elderly parents.

Money is only part of the burden.

A father with dementia may need constant supervision; a bedridden mother may need help eating, bathing and using the toilet; an uncle recovering from a stroke may need daily physical rehabilitation.

The list is as long as that of the issues older people face.

The work of caring for the elderly is tiring, it never ends, and because it is not part of the public conversation, it can be terribly lonely.

We need to talk about this more as a society because Malaysia became an ageing nation in 2021 – when the proportion of those aged 65 and above reached 7% of the total population – and is fast moving towards becoming an aged society.

Add to that the fact that traditional extended family structures are breaking down, caring for the aged among us is becoming more and more difficult.

The sandwich generation, the adults who have children as well as aged parents to support, is being squeezed from two directions.

And those who are childless but have elderly parents as depen­dents are almost completely ignored – if you don’t have children, life is free and easy for you, is the thinking.

But whether you’re married with children or without, or if you’re single, if you’re looking after elderly relatives, you need time off for hospital visits and emergencies, for making care arrangements, and a dozen other matters.

Workers can apply for time off, of course, but paid care leave and greater employer understanding would help them keep their jobs instead of having to quit for the sake of care.

Budget 2027 proposes wider tax relief for those caring for parents and grandparents, a lower service tax on elderly care, and training for 8,000 care workers.

These measures may help. But what good is a tax deduction to someone who has to give up work to look after a sickly person who spent an entire lifetime looking after them in their younger years?

We need a national system to help pay for long-term care.

Carers should be able to get home nursing, day care, rehabilitation or respite care without having to dig too deeply into their reserves – they shouldn’t have to keep digging into EPF or other forms of savings to pay for care because that only risks leaving today’s caregivers dependent on somebody else tomorrow.

Japan has had long-term care insurance since 2000. People aged 40 and above pay premiums, while the government also contributes.

The scheme helps cover approved care services instead of leaving families to meet the full bill.

We don’t have to follow Japan’s system exactly. But surely we can work out something similar that Malaysians can afford?

The government could share the cost with workers and employers, with contributions based on income and support for those who cannot pay.

Any new contributions must be kept affordable, of course, or we risk placing another burden on the very people we are trying to help.

Looking after our parents is something most of us would willingly do. But that shouldn’t mean spending our savings, giving up our jobs, or putting our own future at risk.

After all, who will look after us when we grow old?