They were portrayed as a generous, friendly and caring couple with two lovely children by a former neighbour and family friend, Ms Toh Paik Choo, in her column in The New Paper.

But on Jan 4, police found two decomposing bodies in their five-room executive flat in Lorong Ah Soo - that of Mr Wong on the living room floor and that of his 50-year-old daughter Ju Ling in the bedroom.

Madam Ngai, living amid a mess of newspapers and food wrappers, was convinced the two were asleep.

How did this happen to a family that had no financial problems, lived in an executive flat and would have had the means to pay for home help and other services?

How did they end up the same way as the 'Home Alone Elderly', whose deaths have been similarly discovered too late and described in terms of the stench of rotting bodies?

Neighbours and Residents' Committee (RC) volunteers say the Wong family had always maintained that they had no problems and could manage on their own.

This, even though the state of the flat and the behaviour of the adult daughter were clear signs of impending trouble. There is also a 54-year-old son who remains an unknown entity in this tragedy.

Every year, at least one case of decomposing bodies belatedly discovered makes the headlines.

But most of them are the elderly destitute who die in their one- and two-room flats alone. Often, they are on some welfare scheme such as Personal Assistance or on befriender services provided by voluntary welfare organisations and RCs.

Somehow, there is a community link to them.

For the record, the 2005 General Household Survey found that there were 20,907 people aged 65 who lived alone. Of these, 8,020 were aged 75 and above.

The same 2005 records show that although 87 per cent of the elderly aged 65 and above lived with their spouses, there were more of them living alone, as a couple, without their children - 17 per cent in 2005 as compared with 14 per cent in 2000. The proportion living with their children also dropped from 74 per cent to 69 per cent.

But what makes the Wongs' case unique is their financial self-reliance and that they had children who could care for them. Sadly, that did not seem to help.

More cases similar to the Wongs can be expected over the years as the population ages, people live longer and families get smaller - even though everyone seems to be, on the whole, better off.

In 20 years or so, there will be 2.2 persons supporting every elderly person, a far cry from the statistics of 2000 which showed 10 persons supporting a single elderly person.

The latest figures this year also show that there are more Singaporeans living and working abroad, leaving their parents back home. Currently there are 140,000 Singaporeans living overseas.

The financial strain of looking after an elderly person will come to bear heavily on a smaller group, mainly the middle-aged adults of today, who will also need to work hard now to save for their own old age.

The Wongs' son has made himself scarce since his family's situation was made public, but it appears that contact between him and his kin had been infrequent and minimal.

So we can only speculate that he could belong to the category of middle-aged caregivers for whom caring for elderly parents might have come at a personal cost.

Should he be subject to opprobrium? Reproached for not carrying out his filial duties? If he could not manage to care for them himself, should he at least have directed someone else to watch over them?

Of course, we need to also be respectful of a family's privacy, even if, from our perspective, such concern may be to the detriment of the family.

Madam Cynthia Phua, an MP for Aljunied GRC, who is following up with the Wong family and residents at Lorong Ah Soo, also echoed similar sentiments.

She spoke of the dilemma faced by the RC and neighbours whose intervention is stalled when the family maintains that all is well.

The son continues, Madam Phua said, to ask for privacy.

How then do we spin enough of a safety net for people like the Wongs, who live in neighbourhoods that welfare organisations generally do not converge on, who display no financial distress and who insist that all is well?

It still comes back to us as neighbours to keep an eye out for each other and make it our business to care enough.

We could learn from the example of Mr Lew Huan Kow, 74, who took it upon himself to keep an eye on four elderly neighbours who lived on the same floor in Block 123 in Ang Mo Kio.

To quote him: 'People may think I'm a kaypoh (busybody), but I don't care. They will understand my good intentions eventually.'

But if Singaporeans, known for their reticent nature, find it too tough to be like Mr Lew, what then?

One suggestion raised by Dr Lam Pin Min, MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC, in last year's Budget debate, should be considered. He asked for caregivers from among the public to be given an allowance, as is the case in countries such as Japan, Britain, Australia, Norway and Sweden.

He said that, in Britain, a caregiver gets a weekly allowance of £47 (S$130) for spending 35 hours a week with a person with disabilities. In Osaka, Japan, a person gets 100,000 yen (S$1,300) a year for nursing care given to an elderly person.

In Singapore, such a scheme would also offer work opportunities for stay-at-home mothers and those in need of part-time jobs.

To prepare well for an ageing population, we cannot just depend on children to do the caregiving, whatever the family income. True, there are services - day-care centres, drop-in centres, home care and foreign domestic workers - that can reduce the load of caregiving. However, such options could be out of the reach of even the middle-income group because they fall outside any subsidy scheme that could reduce the costs for them.

Those with relative means have managed to take care of themselves, perhaps, to the point that they do not wish for anyone to see the holes in how they manage.

But we all need a little help somewhere, sometime. And this has to come from the community and the Government.

A little bit of Mr Lew Huan Kow in all of us, a little bit more from the Government and a little bit more openness in seeking help by those who need it most, can stop the next Home Alone Elderly or mentally ill person being discovered only when he or she is rotting away after death - an unbecoming end.

braema@sph.com.sg