- 2 weeks ago
- #considerthis
The 13th Malaysia Plan identifies ageing as one of the country’s defining challenges. And Budget 2026 follows through that, allocating RM1.26 billion to strengthen welfare for older persons. But translating policy intent into practical impact is another story: Are we investing enough in the systems and services to build the long-term care system Malaysia will soon need? On this episode of #ConsiderThis Melisa Idris speaks with Chai Sen Tyng, Senior Research Officer at UPM’s Malaysian Research Institute on Ageing (MyAgeing).
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00:00Hello and good evening. I'm Melissa Idris. Welcome to Consider This. This is the show where we want
00:23you to consider and then reconsider what you know of the news of the day. The 13th Malaysia Plan
00:28identifies ageing as one of the country's defining challenges and budget 2026 follows through on that
00:36allocating 1.26 billion ringgit to strengthen welfare for older persons but translating policy
00:45intent into practical impact is another story. Are we investing enough in the systems and the
00:53services to build the long-term care system Malaysia will soon need? Joining me on the show
01:01to discuss this further is Chai Sinting who is a Senior Research Officer at UPM's Malaysia Research
01:07Institute on Aging, better known as My Aging. Chai, welcome back to the show. It's good to have you on.
01:13Let's talk about this 1.26 billion ringgit that was allocated under budget 2026 for the welfare
01:19of older persons. I'm just wondering what you think the government should focus on to ensure
01:25that those funds really produce measurable improvements in the welfare of older persons.
01:33I think, thanks Melissa for having us. I think the most important thing is to note that I think the
01:39government is spending way more than 1.2 or 3 billion on seniors. I think the funding for
01:46Bantuan Wagga Emas, or older persons assistance, which is about 600 ringgit a month, is already
01:53roughly about 1.1 billion. So, the bulk of it, 90%, 95% of that 1.2 billion actually goes to a
02:02cash transfer program under the Department of Social Welfare at 600 ringgit a month.
02:08The number of beneficiaries has stagnated in the past few years, but we are seeing some recent increase
02:14to about 160,000, according to the Prime Minister's budget speech. It seems like they are targeting
02:20180,000. So, that's good news, right? Trying to increase coverage. But actually, the government
02:27also spent roughly about 30 over billion, I think, on civil service pensions. That benefits about
02:36close to 960,000 pensioners and pension recipients, you know, the survivor pensions. We also have a small
02:46number that is getting some form of SOCSO pensions, but that doesn't come under the general revenue,
02:55because that's funded directly through SOCSO. And of course, we have an EPF, but since not many people
03:02take up the annuity option, they will take up the annuity option. And technically SOCSO and EPF does not
03:07cost taxpayers funding directly. So, I would say that the budget is a conservative one. There are a few
03:17points where they try and highlight some new initiatives like QUAP's retirement home project, 300 million. And
03:26there are also some mentions about different deductions and allocations here and there. So, I suppose
03:34it would be more like playing defence in this budget. I suppose the government didn't make key
03:42announcements on pension reforms, but I suppose those will take some time as we are still short on
03:48details and the pathway ahead on how we can introduce more long-term care and social protection pension
03:55reforms. Yeah. Well, that's interesting. So, what you've kind of laid out for us is
04:03cash transfers. So, when we think about cash support, it's almost always short-term. How should
04:11policy makers think about that balance? Because you want to make sure that whatever's being allocated is
04:16being used for cash transfers, for short-term protections, balancing that with investments
04:25in services like home care, rehabilitation, mental health for older adults?
04:32Yeah. I think that's a good question because when you think about it, if we give cash transfers to
04:38seniors and their family members, then ideally that they will be able to purchase services that they need.
04:43But because the quantum of the assistance is so small, then it's very difficult. And one of the biggest
04:51stumbling blocks is that if you receive this Bantuan Warga Emas and you decide to check in into a
04:58aged care facility or Pusat Jagaan Warga Emas, you can no longer use that fund. So, you're not entitled to
05:06it any longer because under the premise that you are being taken care of the aged care facility. But
05:12that's not really true because you still have to pay for some services unless you're entering into a
05:17charitable home or whatsoever. But in that case, the charitable home could do with that funding,
05:23you know, to help cross-subsidize the residents. So, there are other beneficiaries that are not really
05:31mentioned because Bantuan Am, which we call the general aid under the state welfare officers,
05:38actually most of them, the recipients are elderly as well, but their quantum would be lower. It
05:43wouldn't be RM600 a month, maybe closer to RM300 or RM400 depending on which state you are.
05:49So, we also have Bantuan Zakat. So, the idea here is exactly like what you mentioned. The idea here is
05:55that, you know, if we give money to the seniors, they are not all staying on their own. They are all
06:00not able to spend the funds on their own. So, the real question here is that care is a totally different
06:08component because while you can give cash to the elderly, he might be or she might be a bit ridden,
06:14you know, a lot of the withdrawals at the bank is actually being done by the adult children or
06:18grandchildren. So, care is still a major issue. So, that is why it's always never enough to just have
06:26one solution. So, we need also what we call home and community-based care services. We also need
06:34long-term care facilities. We also need long-term care financing, but perhaps we also need a lot of
06:40laws, you know, like elder abuse and neglect laws. We also need Adult Protection Act, you know, or we even
06:48call in some cases those advanced medical directives. So, there are many things we could do. It's certainly
06:56not within the limitations of the budget speech, but it is spelled out in RMK 13. So, it's all, you know,
07:04part of the implementation plan. Right. Could you help me understand, Chai, what does the current research or
07:12the current thinking around the workforce that's needed for quality elder care in Malaysia? When you
07:20think about that, I mean, I'm sure we have the informal caregivers as well, the family members, yes, but
07:28when you think about the formal sector, nurses, care staff, what does the current research say about that?
07:32Yeah, because we realize that there's a bit of a misunderstanding about what is long-term care
07:37and what is actually hospital and what we call tertiary care. Actually, they are very different
07:43things, you know, and that's why national health insurance goes to a different place. Long-term
07:49care insurance goes to aged care operators. It's two different service providers. But somehow in
07:55Malaysia, we seem to think that all of it comes under hospitals or doctors. You don't really need
07:59doctors at a long-term care facility. It depends. You probably would need one or two nurses and
08:05assistant nurses. But if the elderly's condition is stable and it's more like an aged care facility
08:12rather than a nursing home, then they would need care services, caregivers. And this is what we feel
08:19that from our studies and research, we think that we probably need a law to register care workers.
08:27And it's not meant to be punitive. The idea here is that, you know, it's just like the child
08:35minders registration. You know, there is an existing one. If you want to be a child minder, you have to be
08:41registered. Of course, some people will hire non-registered child minders, you know, but if you register
08:48them, then you can say that, is this person's training recognized? You know, are they qualified? Or at least we
08:53say the word, are they trained? Later, you can add a label of whether they're qualified. But it is a
08:58starting point because many countries need to, for any profession to become a service that is
09:06monitored, that has professional development, we need to register them. And maybe through this
09:12registration exercise, then the government can say that, hey, you are not trained or you're
09:16insufficiently trained. Let's bring you to ISM or bring you to MAPEM or bring you to any of these train
09:22centers and the government can pay for your training. You know, so that way the intervention
09:27can work, you know, in a sense that they have registered care workers and the goal or the target
09:32is to increase the percentage of trained or retrained or CPD points. You know, every year you allocate or
09:39log in six hours or something like that to keep yourself abreast of the ability to care. It is also a
09:46very good feature that will enable us to bring in foreign workers. Like for example, if we have MADE
09:52and whatsoever, we can lock them into the system. And then at least we say that, hey, we have, you know,
09:57maybe X number of domestic helpers who are properly trained to take care of the elderly. And that will
10:04actually help in terms of elevating the issue of manpower faced by many operators in Malaysia at the present.
10:12So are all of these kind of in the works? So you mentioned that RMK 13, the 13th Malaysia Plan,
10:20looks at this from a more holistic, whole of government approach. Is this on track? Do we know
10:28and do we now understand what it is being laid out for us with the, if I'm not mistaken, is it the National
10:34Aging Blueprint? Whether that's been been put into practice or being put into the process of
10:42implementation? I think they are. The National Aging Blueprint most likely will go to the parliament
10:47first. I think the other one is under the Ministry of Women's Care Economy Framework or Care Industry
10:55Framework. So there are movements. There's also the Senior Citizen Bill. So the question here is until the
11:01final document is out, you know, we don't know how it will look like. But it definitely means that
11:07and or is signals that there's going to be public funding going into these places to try and make it
11:12happen. So which one that will be prioritized and in what final form it will take, it will all depend
11:19on public engagement. And sometimes, a lot of times, it's actually also depending on the public,
11:25because if the public seems to feel that, oh, let's have a new Minister of Aging and the problems
11:30will get solved by itself, then maybe they might lean on that, you know. So I suppose that's why I said
11:36we need a lot of conversations, we need a lot of discussions, especially among the stakeholders
11:42themselves, especially the operators, especially the family and caregivers, then we can understand
11:48what form of intervention or policy intervention works the best. But you sitting in my aging, having
11:57the, I guess, the insights of research and maybe also kind of a bird's eye view of the aging population,
12:06what would you like government to prioritize? With this blueprint, what were you hoping there'd be
12:13the primary object, the primary priority for this? Definitely, Melissa. I think they will try at least
12:20everything. But we have to prioritize, right? We can't be doing everything all at the same time. So
12:26the institute definitely has Dr. Ragnar, our director, her core specialization is human services,
12:34aged care services. And that's one of the reasons why our research track has taken a different turn. We
12:40don't really try and survey residents of old folks homes and all that because our main point of
12:46departure was to understand the age care industry as a business model. And that is why when we did the survey,
12:58a telephone survey with residential aged care operators, we learned a lot about the industry. We understand what they feel that
13:05they need. But we also must temper it with the realities of the national policy, which they would not likely
13:12encourage more foreign workers in Malaysia. So the question then becomes, how do we make
13:18care workers or care workers or care work more attractive to locals? And we have actually even tapped as far as
13:27during these roundtable sessions or workshops being organized by the ministries that we say that,
13:33you know, there's really nothing wrong for Malaysia to introduce a pension just for
13:38care workers, right? We give allowances or pensions to what we call these guru khafars or kermas ex-teachers or
13:50whatsoever. So in the past, teachers are also on their own provident fund, you know, before they're all
13:56absorbed under the civil service. So the idea here is that because our culture and our country has
14:02has less examples of union-like behavior or union groups where you have industry-based pensions,
14:09it's very common overseas. It's just that over here, we hardly think about them anymore. But if you want
14:14to make a profession to be attractive, and it's not necessarily a white collar job, then you have to
14:20probably entice the worker to say that if you have served or what, say like 10 years or 15 years,
14:26as a caregiver, you'll be entitled to a small stable pension in old age. This is exactly why some
14:34people in the US, young men and women signed up into the army, because if they serve for a certain
14:40period of time, they will get veteran benefits, you know, health care costs is horrible in the US.
14:47So you can have a lot of trouble going without. So many of them actually serve for a brief time
14:52in the armed forces in order to qualify. So I think we are thinking along those lines to try and
14:57make it more attractive, other than trying to tell everyone that, you know, like a teacher's job,
15:01like a nurse job, these are dignified tasks, you know, it's not like hire or last resort or something
15:07like that. What an interesting proposal. I would be interested to see how this develops. Chai,
15:14thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing some of these insights. I appreciate your time.
15:18Chai sent in there from MyAging and we're going to take a quick break here and consider this.
15:22We'll be back with more. Stay tuned.
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