SINGAPORE \u2013 Cleaning a woman\u2019s wounds from a mastectomy is no mean feat. Adrian Tan would know, having cared for his mother, who was diagnosed with breast cancer when he was 21.<\/p>\n
When he first tended to her bruised and pus-filled scars, both mother and son wept.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe kept telling me, \u2018It\u2019s okay, son, it doesn\u2019t hurt,\u2019\u201d recalled Adrian, now 40. \u201cBut how can it be not painful?\u201d<\/p>\n
Nearly two decades later, he speaks about those years with the weight of someone who knows caregiving can be as relentless as it is intimate.<\/p>\n
His experience would eventually shape a new mission. In 2017, he and fellow caregiver Greg Tan started SG Assist, an organisation that supports and advocates for caregivers.<\/p>\n
Greg, 44, has similarly been in the trenches.<\/p>\n
In 2015, after his father underwent an angioplasty, a procedure to open blood vessels to allow blood flow, he accompanied the older man in hospital daily for about two months.<\/p>\n
Stories like theirs are increasingly familiar in Singapore, where caregiving is a growing concern<\/span><\/a> as the population ages and more people shoulder the long-term care of loved ones with disabilities or chronic illnesses.<\/p>\n As the eldest child, Adrian became his mother\u2019s primary caregiver after her cancer diagnosis in 2007. She had to stop work as a kindergarten teacher and his logistics driver father became the family\u2019s sole breadwinner. Back then, Adrian\u2019s younger sister was 19 and his brother was only 11.<\/p>\n While pursuing a part-time diploma in logistics management, Adrian juggled lessons alongside his mother\u2019s doctor appointments and medicine, and read library books to learn about her condition.<\/p>\n He also worked multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet, and later to pay off $80,000 in debt after his father used a credit card to pay the house loan of their four-room HDB flat.<\/p>\n \u201cI definitely had no more personal life. I stopped meeting my friends. I spent all my extra time with (my mother) or to work part time,\u201d said Adrian.<\/p>\n Fighting cancer also made his mother depressed. She would sometimes call him in the middle of the day, wailing. After he started working full time in the logistics sector, he exhausted his annual leave rushing home to handle her breakdowns.<\/p>\n It felt like he was carrying an immense burden by himself.<\/p>\n \u201cWe expect caregivers like myself to do the work of a social worker, a nurse, a doctor in our own home,\u201d Adrian said.<\/p>\n During an in-camp training stint in 2017, Adrian struck up a chat with Greg, then a superintendent in an oil and gas firm. Both men found out that they were caregivers to their ailing parents and bonded over shared difficulties.<\/p>\n One common topic they noticed in conversations with others was about taking parents to medical appointments.<\/p>\n \u201cBut a lot of people don\u2019t realise that is actually talking about caregiving,\u201d said Greg. Hence, many are not aware of available resources and solutions.<\/p>\n About a month later, they took the plunge \u2013 with a total of nearly $300,000 from their own funds and those of four other caregiver friends \u2013 and set up non-profit organisation SG Assist.<\/p>\n The two men did not draw a salary until SG Assist became a social enterprise in 2018.<\/p>\n Even after the organisation became profitable, they paid themselves about $3,000 a month each \u2013 a fraction of what they once earned. Adrian had been making about $7,000 a month and Greg earned about US$20,000.<\/p>\n SG Assist\u2019s work includes supporting caregivers by linking them to resources and providing consultancy services for social service agencies on caregiver-related projects.<\/p>\n The duo believe caregivers face various pressures, which may not always be alleviated through government support schemes.<\/p>\n Caregivers still struggle with questions like where to find a suitable wheelchair, how to hire a domestic helper with the right skills, or who can attend to an aged parent\u2019s meals while they are at work, said Adrian.<\/p>\n Adrian at their Caregiver Resource Centre in Khatib, which houses the Age+ Living Lab displaying the latest technology to meet the needs of the elderly.<\/p>\n ST PHOTO: NG SOR LUAN<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Some financial support is limited to those from lower-income families or certain housing types, but caregiving impacts people of all backgrounds, he added.<\/p>\n SG Assist does not replace social services, he said. Instead, it points caregivers to relevant resources, including connecting them with grants or places to buy specialised equipment.<\/p>\n Greg said: \u201cThat means you don\u2019t have to start from zero. I can \u2018jump-start\u2019 you immediately into a \u2018five-year-old\u2019 caregiver by imparting skill sets to you, helping you with your immediate needs.\u201d<\/p>\n Greg Tan quit his five-figure salary as a superintendent in the oil and gas industry to set up SG Assist.<\/p>\n ST PHOTO: SARAH LEE<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Their first idea was an app that would match caregivers with volunteers who could help with tasks such as accompanying parents to medical appointments. The scheme struggled to gain traction, attracting only about 100 volunteers in its early days.<\/p>\n Funders, too, were difficult to convince. Not many saw caregivers as a beneficiary group in their own right, said Adrian.<\/p>\n Word about their app spread only during the Covid-19 pandemic<\/span><\/a>, when more people needed help with daily errands. Their volunteer network grew to about 8,000.<\/p>\n In 2023, they opened a Caregiver Resource Centre in Khatib, which hosts regular caregiving-related talks. It also houses the Age+ Living Lab<\/span><\/a>, where the latest technology to meet the needs of the elderly is displayed.<\/p>\n The original app was discontinued in 2026 due to operational challenges, although the organisation is actively looking for partners to develop an updated version. Its caregivers are still connected via a Telegram group chat.<\/p>\n Adrian and Greg, both bachelors, are still caring for their parents. Adrian\u2019s mother has been in remission since 2021 but has occasional depressive episodes, while Greg\u2019s father is on regular medication.<\/p>\n In 2024, Adrian became a care recipient himself.<\/p>\n He suffered a stroke that temporarily paralysed one side of his body and now relies on a domestic helper at home. He has regained mobility, but has less stamina and stability than before.<\/p>\n The thought of shutting down SG Assist \u2013 which now has 16 employees \u2013 crossed the founders\u2019 minds. But they decided to carry on.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to be the reason it closes down,\u201d said Adrian. \u201cI want to push it to a state where it can sustain itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeing life from the other side has also given him a deeper understanding of care recipients, which has in turn helped him better support caregivers, he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 Cleaning a woman\u2019s wounds from a mastectomy is no mean feat. Adrian Tan would know, having cared for his mother, who was diagnosed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67950,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A social worker, nurse, doctor \u2013 all at once<\/h2>\n
Forgoing five-figure salary<\/h2>\n
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From caregiver to care recipient<\/h2>\n
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