Hands up for new Whampoa care centre

A key addition to the upgraded Whampoa CC is the Community for Successful Ageing Centre.
A key addition to the upgraded Whampoa CC is the Community for Successful Ageing Centre. ST PHOTO: CHEW SENG KIM

A new care centre for the elderly was launched yesterday at the official reopening of Whampoa Community Club (CC), which had been closed for more than a year for upgrading works.

The CC's total size has nearly doubled to about 4,000 sq m and includes the first Community for Successful Ageing (ComSA) Centre.

The facility, a collaboration between the National Healthcare Group and Tsao Foundation, comprises an in-house outpatient clinic and a senior care centre.

Whampoa resident June Lee, 65, who has been using a wheelchair since a fall two years ago, visits the ComSA Centre five days a week to be with friends, and undergoes therapy once a week. "I also sing karaoke here with my friends, I like to come here," she said.

Health Minister Gan Kim Yong said at the opening: "The ComSA Centre is an example of the development of community care infrastructure to support our care transformation efforts - to go beyond healthcare to health, and to extend care beyond hospitals to home."

Jalan Besar GRC MP Heng Chee How said the centre would help to serve the significant number of seniors living in the Whampoa estate, where about a fifth of residents are over 60 and a quarter are over 50.

The latest Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) project by PUB was also launched yesterday by Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim.

A 450m stretch of Sungei Whampoa, next to the CC, has been transformed to provide new social spaces, including a rain garden.

Other new facilities at the CC include an air-conditioned multi-purpose hall, dance studios and a childcare centre to meet potential demand from young families expected to move to Whampoa.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on February 27, 2017, with the headline Hands up for new Whampoa care centre. Subscribe