Elderly care gets boost with new law, digital awareness to fight scams
The Deputy Women, Family and Community Development Minister said one of the ministry's current focus areas was to ensure that older persons could live independently and with dignity, particularly in light of rising cases of online scams targeting vulnerable groups.
"The ministry is taking several important steps to strengthen protection for senior citizens, particularly in terms of neglect and abuse.
"For this reason, we are in the process of drafting the Senior Citizens Bill, which aims primarily to protect the fundamental rights and welfare of this group.
"We are also currently reviewing the National Senior Citizens Action Plan, with one of the main focuses being issues such as scams and fraud.
"The goal is to create a generation of independent, respected senior citizens who receive support from the community," she said during Minister's Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat today.
She was responding to a question from Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail (PH-Bandar Tun Razak), who queried the ministry's efforts to introduce more comprehensive laws to protect senior citizens against neglect and abuse by family members and also scams.
Noraini said the ministry would implement awareness programmes and digital literacy courses to help prevent them from becoming victims of cybercrime.
"This is part of our efforts to improve the system because, ultimately, we must ensure that the implementation of every policy truly reaches the grassroots, and this requires the cooperation of all parties," she said.
She said the ministry, through the Social Welfare Department, also provides Home Help Services, which offers social support to elderly individuals who live alone.
"These Social Welfare Department volunteers visit the elderly regularly and offer companionship, help prepare meals and drinks, and assist with household chores.
"The objective is to enable seniors to age in place within their communities. If that is no longer possible, then we look to community-based care, and only then to institutional care," she said.
She said they also have the Unit Penyayang Warga Emas initiative as a complementary service to Home Help, which provides transportation for elderly individuals to attend medical appointments at hospitals or public health clinics.
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