PUBLISHED ONMarch 14, 2014 10:15 PM
SINGAPORE - After an operation last July, Ms Masayang Abdul Samad was left with an open wound in her left arm which needed cleaning daily.
She could have gone to a polyclinic to get the job done.
But this would have been a hassle, as the 41-year-old is blind and would have had to find someone to accompany her.
Instead, she engaged a nurse from the Home Nursing Foundation, who went to her home for the next three months to help her with the cleaning. "Without home care I would most probably also have stayed in hospital longer to have the wound settled," she said.
She also gets weekly help for basic housework, like mopping and sweeping the floor.
"I can do housework myself, but I'm not able to see, so it might not be very clean," said Ms Masayang, who is unemployed and who was left blind in 2007 after complications following a kidney infection.
She is set to benefit from the Ministry of Health's plans to provide more subsidised options and raise standards in the home-care sector.
The wound in Ms Masayang's arm has since healed, but the nurse still stops by fortnightly to help organise her medicines into daily dosages.
She takes more than 10 different medicines for her high blood pressure, kidney problems, and diabetes.
"On my own, I would have to feel the shape and size of every tablet," she said. "It's very troublesome."
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