A FREE health-care system is an attractive ideal. But it leads to uncontrollable demand for health care, which then becomes 'far from free to the society as a whole', Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday.

Instead, the Singapore style is to combine self-reliance with community and state support in caring for the elderly, he said.

This formula also applies to financial security for the old, another top concern.

'It is also important that each individual takes personal responsibility, plans ahead, anticipates and prepares for his later years,' he said.

'Our system therefore encourages self-reliance, with the Government playing an enabling role to help each person build up his individual assets and savings, through home ownership and the Central Provident Fund.'

In Asia, the family is also the first line of care and support for seniors:

'Although urbanisation and the trend towards smaller, nuclear families will put this practice under pressure, we must hold to it as much as we can. If families abdicate responsibility for their aged parents, and put the burden wholly on the state, our collective burden will be too much to bear.'

Beyond the family, Singapore has a system of many helping hands with community and voluntary organisations playing a role.

But he gave the assurance that the Government will provide more resources as the population ages. This includes building new acute and community hospitals and beefing up the health profession.

'We will provide more resources, but it is not just a matter of spending more. It is also important to get the funding structure and support policies right, to ensure that services remain affordable and sustainable,' he said.

Mr Lee was presenting the Singapore experience at a two-day conference, Reinventing Retirement Asia, which looks at how countries confront retirement issues and tap elderly talents.

The international conference is co-hosted by Singapore's Council for Third Age and the United States' AARP, formerly known as the American Association for Retired Persons, a powerful lobby for the 50-plus population.

Speaking to The Straits Times, two advocates for the aged in Singapore responded quite differently to Mr Lee's views on self-reliance, a subject of regular debate in Singapore.

Mr Gerard Ee, the Council for Third Age chairman, was very encouraged to hear Mr Lee present the Government's 'all-encompassing' strategy on elderly issues.

The impression, he said, is that the Government has done so much. It is for Singaporeans to take 'ownership' of what is available to them.

They can help themselves, he noted, whether it is signing up for enhanced MediShield benefits or exercising in the fitness corners set up for them.

'The whole formula has to be individual ownership with government support,' he said.

But Dr Kanwaljit Soin, president of the Women's Initiative for Ageing Successfully or Wings, said: 'There's too much emphasis on individual responsibility.'

She said Singapore should prepare younger people to be self-reliant. But she questioned if Singapore as a society has prepared older people for individual responsibility.

This is the group that built modern Singapore, working in low-capital, high-labour jobs in the 1960s and 70s. They have little CPF and no health benefits, she noted.

She wants the Government 'to do more' for this generation, she said. This is in spheres that include health care, financial help and infrastructure.

She has visited older women living in high-floor flats, 'stuck' at home because there are no lifts on their floors. These women also have few channels to connect to the outside world or learn about elderly-friendly policy changes for the lack of dialect radio shows, she added.

About 370 policymakers, workforce experts, non-profit delegates and entrepreneurs from 16 countries are here for the conference at Pan Pacific Hotel.

siewhua@sph.com.sg

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Gerard Ee

Made the point that Singaporeans needed to take ownership of the elderly-friendly policies and services available to them

Kanwaljit Soin

Argued that too much emphasis had been put on self-reliance and questioned if older Singaporeans had been prepared to take more responsibility for their own needs