Long Live the Aged and Short Live the Young

Was reading the Review section in the Straits Times a couple of days back and came across a report on how the baby boomers in US are losing their retirement nest eggs. Does not matter if you have a high paying job. Ultimately whatever retirement funds you've stashed away for yourself would be used to pay for your parent's medical bills. Granted medical care in US can be really expensive, but to be frank, caring for the immobile/ senile/ seriously ill aged is expensive worldwide.

Let's start breaking down the cost:

1. Fees for consultation. Can be quite expensive depending on what's ailing the parent. You may end up having to pay a few specialists to look after your parent. Cost can still add up even if the patient is under government subsidy.

2. Fees for tests. Talking about blood tests, and scans or scopes that has to be done to aid the doctors in better understanding of the patient's condition. Again, cost can add up if the parent requires multiple tests even if there is government subsidy for some of these tests.

3. Fees for medicine. Yes, it is separate. I have no idea why Singaporeans always think the medicine fees are charged under the consultation fees. Again, depending on the condition of the parent. Medicine fees can range between $10 - >$1000 a month.

4. Fees for maid. Naturally not everybody will hire a maid to look after his or her ailing parents, but when it comes to parents who are no longer able to do simple things such as dressing or feeding themselves, or are bed bound, a maid is essential. With current trends of having small families, it is unrealistic to expect people to stop working just to look after their parents full-time. The opportunity cost of not working is way too high compared to hiring a maid. After all, humans do not live on air alone.

5. Fees for nursing home. This is the alternative choice to the maid. Usually chosen over having a maid because the parent probably needed professional nursing care round the clock or there is difficulty in getting a good maid to look after the parent. A choice even my dad, who can be a stick in the mud, agreed is in the best interest of the child and the parent.

6. Fees for hospitalization. Nuff said.

7. Miscellaneous cost such as hiring ambulance to ferry the immobile parent to and fro the hospital for check ups.

It does not take a guru to conclude that the monthly cost of just looking after one aged can be equivalent to the monthly earnings of an average university graduate who has already worked for 3-5 yrs, and this is the scary part. Already we are working hard, but to make ends meet when looking after the aged we have to work doubly hard and this usually does not translate to double the income. I don’t know about others, but I would be pissed off knowing no matter how hard I work, I never really get to touch the money.

I am not trying to point fingers at the aged saying they are a burden to society. I am just highlighting the reality and frustrations of looking after a population whose life expectancy keeps increasing, and asking parents all over to change their mind-set on what is filial and what is not. Do not blame the children when they send parents to nursing homes, or when they occasionally fail to visit the parents in the nursing homes.

Gone are the days when the monetary load of looking after sick aged parents can be shared amongst a few siblings and at least one of the siblings can quit the job to look after the parents. Gone too are the days when people succumb soon after major diseases eg. stroke, heart failure, renal failure etc. With advancements in the medical field, life of those who had suffered major illnesses can be prolonged with some give on the quality of life of the patients. At the same time, to put it bluntly, it also means the monetary burden of looking after them is prolonged. For the sandwich generation (those with aged parents and young children to look after), the stress and monetary load are heavier. Eventually there may be a trend whereby life-expectancy starts to decrease again; the sandwich generation may just die at a younger age due to the stress incurred when they were younger.

Whatever is the case, things certainly do not look rosy.