Fong (third right) with Welling (fifth right), John Chin, charmain of EOTP (fourth left), Smith (second left), Hee (third from left), Bonny (fifth left), Michael Fields, deputy chairman of Optimum Aged Care Systems (fourth from right) and at the back: Quek Siew Hau, managing director of Wah Mie Group (third right).
KUCHING: Eden on the Park (EOTP) aims to change the community’s mindset towards aged care services with its nursing care residence.
EOTP is a five-star nursing care residence, designed according to state-of-the-art Australian standards. It offers long-term, short-term and rehabilitation residential care to seniors.
The nursing care residence is operated by an Australian-based company led by Ruth Welling and her team. EOTP’s mission is to provide compassionate person-centred care through innovative and efficient care service delivery.
In a press conference yesterday, Victor Fong, managing director of EOTP, noted that Malaysia is slowly becoming an aging nation.
He further noted that of all the registrations into government hospitals, even though it is less than 10 per cent at the moment of people who are over 60 years of age, the people who go to government hospitals, check in and got treated there, it numbers at 24 per cent of all treatments given at government hospitals.
“Twenty-four per cent of government patients are over 60, but they form at the moment about nine per cent, of the population. In three years time, they will be over 10 per cent,” Fong said. He added that according to the United Nations, if 10 per cent of the population is more than 60 years old, then the country is considered to be aging.
According to Fong, it has been observed that in the last 20 years or so, traditional family units where three generations of families living together, is something very unusual nowadays given that it no longer happens very often as in the past.
“In Malaysia, just like the rest of the world, this is becoming very rare. People are moving to other cities to work because the employment opportunities are somewhere else.
“And you find that very often, the people in their 80s, 90s and so on, are actually living on their own,” Fong said.
He noted that these parents who are in their 80s, 90s, there is nobody looking after them or feeding them properly. Usually these old folks would also have to go for medical examinations or treatments whereby they have to be brought or they have to go on their own and when they go back home, they forget for example, what medicine to take.
It is for that reason, the nursing care residence concept of EOTP came about, which is a new lifestyle concept that will be the first of its kind in Malaysia and Southeast Asia as well.
However, EOTP will have to change the ‘filial piety’ mindset and typical image people generally have of nursing care facilities, especially due to the current nursing homes with basic facilities found here.
“We have to change that attitude and change that mindset and the way people accept nursing home as something that is very interesting, a place that you all want to go to, to retire, to spend your time there with friends and have things to do and feel active and positive about life,” Fong stressed.
EOTP has 71 luxurious and well designed comfortable rooms (single and dual occupancy). All the rooms are furnished with home comforts of air-conditioning, sofa, bed, ensuite, TV, built-in wardrobe, WiFi and an Australian designed 24-hour nursing call and security system.
Its facilities and services include 24 hours trained nurses on duty, personal and nursing care, online medical and nursing records, meals and refreshments, doctor on call, housekeeping and laundry services, business centre, in-house kitchen and laundry, dining and lounge room, visitors lounge, medical and treatment rooms, physiotherapy room, games room, a day care centre, 120-seat auditorium, pharmacy/kiosk, beauty salon, in-house social recreational activities, 24 hours security, walking paths and sky gardens on every floor.
“After about six-seven years of planning, 10 years of vision, we finally have a building up that we call the care residence. It’s not a nursing home, it is a care hotel.
“You can imagine it is as good as any hotel in town. We will have all the support services, we give you proper care, proper hospitality treatment and a place where people would love to retire to,” Fong added.
EOTP Care Residence’s staff has been receiving Aged Care Training by trainers from Australia including Raymond Hee, executive manager of Elite Health Care Australia (dementia care), Chris Tyrell from Access Health (continence care), Melbourne, Jane Bonny, consultant of Optimum Aged Care Systems (person centred care, fall prevention, management of Asymptomatic UTI in the elderly and management of flu and gastro outbreaks), Ruth Welling, founding director of Eden-Optimum Management Sdn Bhd and Optimum-Eden Healthcare Sdn Bhd (Australian Aged Care Standards and aged care trends around the world) and Peter Smith from Smart Caller (one stop healthcare communication solutions).