New St John’s Home for the elderly in Potong Pasir officially opens
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SINGAPORE - The St John’s Home for Elderly Persons, which moved into its new premises at 1 Willow Avenue in Potong Pasir in December 2021, was officially opened on Saturday.
The building has facilities such as a hydrotherapy pool and a roof garden for communal gardening.
It has the capacity to house 144 residents, and it is now 50 per cent full. The rooms have elderly-friendly design features such as slip-free tiles and larger bathrooms to accommodate wheelchairs. The residents are also given Bluetooth-enabled wearable devices that monitor their activities and detect for anomalies that require intervention if necessary.
President Halimah Yacob, who was at the event, said Singapore’s population is ageing very rapidly and the total fertility rate is very low, at 1.12.
This leads to tremendous pressure on caregiving services, and Singapore needs a clearer strategy and overall plan on caregiving at home or ageing in the community, she said.
The home, which was established in 1958 and caters to over-60s who are ambulant, used to occupy a 12,000 sq m plot of land about the size of 1½ football fields in Wan Tho Avenue.
When its lease expired in 2015, the home managed to secure a new lease but for a much smaller area of 3,300 sq m of the same plot of land.
The new building was constructed between September 2018 and November 2021 while the home continued to operate at part of its old premises next to the construction site. The remaining land has since been returned to the Government, after the home moved to its new premises in December 2021.
