Commentary: Super-aged Singapore must talk about assisted living – and assisted dying

Some higher-income families, including those in private housing, may make ad hoc arrangements that come close to assisted living – hiring a domestic helper, engaging part-time caregivers, or retrofitting homes for ageing. But they are not substitutes for purpose-built assisted-living communities.

A domestic helper model, for instance, places significant responsibility on a single caregiver, often without medical training, and does not provide the social and communal environment that structured assisted living can provide. As family sizes shrink and care needs increase, this model may prove fragile.

Even if the higher-income can afford such arrangements, the point is that assisted living should not depend primarily on individual households assembling private solutions.

Instead, if assisted living is to be a pillar of our ageing policy, Singapore could consider clearer regulatory frameworks, land-use planning incentives and integrated care standards that enable professionally managed assisted-living communities – whether public or private – to operate at a meaningful scale.