The Malaysian Healthy Ageing Society is a non-governmental organization which actively promotes healthy ageing in Malaysians through the education of the lay public and the dissemination of information on innovative medical advances to members of the medical profession. We believe every Malaysian has a right to live a full and healthy life, free to pursue happiness in our own individual ways.
Therefore, we are grieved to be reminded in the media, that far too many of our aged citizens suffer the bitterness of abandonment by their families at a time when they should be living in dignity and be tenderly cared for by their loved ones. Although it is natural to attribute these cases of abandonment to undesirable changes in social mores, we believe that the many factors accounting for these cases need to be closely examined. There are far too many cases in which the elderly are deemed no longer useful contributing members of the family unit and are cruelly cast out. Nevertheless, we believe that many more families are just unable to cope with the care of their elderly loved ones when they are afflicted by illnesses that overwhelm the already highly stressed modern family unit. For example, the demented patient acting on his delusions or wandering off from the safety of his home can create a living hell for his household. Or a badly debilitated stroke patient may require an inordinate amount of nursing care beyond what can be reasonably provided by a family in which every member has to hold down a full-time job just to survive financially. We suspect these examples are not isolated cases and deserve our compassion and understanding rather than our condemnation.
At the Malaysian Healthy Ageing Society we believe providing effective training to these family members is a constructive and effective way to equip and provide skills to Malaysians who already desire to care for their loved ones but are unsure of how to do so. The society, in collaboration with the Department of Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia, has organized a series of training program entitled “Train the Caregivers of the Elderly” in several cities. These training seminars allow medical professionals to share their extensive knowledge and experience with participants. To date, the program has been conducted in Kuala Lumpur,Penang, Johor and Kedah, bringing awareness of issues involved in caring for the elderly to over 1000 participants in these states.
We have received numerous requests through e-mails and phone calls to provide this training program to all the states in Malaysia. A second run is planned for 2010, which will see this training program extend into Perak, Negeri Sembilan, Pahang and East Malaysia. The society seeks partners throughout the country to make this very affordable training program accessible to not only professional caregivers and workers of nursing institutions but also to anyone with an elderly member at home who desires to be actively involved.
We acknowledge and thank the following corporations for their sponsorship towards
“Train the Care Givers of the Elderly” programme
