\n<\/p>\n
Funeral homes are seeing more cases of people dying unnoticed in their homes, only to be discovered days later.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s usually because of the smell, or even certain forms of liquids that leak, and a neighbour might discover the death,\u201d said Ms Harmony Tee, funeral director at Harmony Funeral Care.<\/p>\n
These homes are increasingly having to step in when no family member is available. There is also no legal requirement for a relative to pay for funeral expenses.<\/p>\n
When police or social workers are unable to find or convince the next-of-kin to act, undertakers are sometimes\u00a0<\/span>asked to provide cremations for free. Ms Tee says many in the industry see it as a moral duty.<\/p>\n Another funeral home, Direct Funeral Services, charters a boat every few months to scatter into the sea the ashes of 30 to 40 people whose remains go unclaimed. It handles over 120 pro bono cases a year.<\/p>\n Its managing director, Jenny Tay, said many seniors fear dying alone. One trishaw rider shared that fear while pre-planning for his funeral at the firm.\u00a0<\/p>\n Frail and living alone, he asked the funeral home if they could install a CCTV camera in his flat so staff could check on him in case he fell and needed help. It was an unusual request but the home agreed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we installed the CCTV, he felt very at ease that someone would be taking care of him,\u201d Ms Tay said.<\/p>\n Staff monitored him daily. One day, they noticed through the camera that he had fallen and rushed him to hospital.<\/p>\n Cases like his inspired the company to set up a foundation organising outings and social activities for isolated seniors.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they mingle more, they check in more on each other, and eventually, when things happen or there’s any accidents, response can be made in time,\u201d said Darren Cheng, CEO of Direct Funeral Services.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n FALLING THROUGH THE CRACKS Funeral homes are seeing more cases of people dying unnoticed in their homes, only to be discovered days later.\u00a0 “It\u2019s usually…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":70146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--KUzGpK0z--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2021-08:cna,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/mediacorp\/cna\/image\/2026\/07\/20\/social_workers_visiting_at_funeral.jpeg?itok=H6bIdmiX","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[26831,159,5000,667,4303,5547,2528],"class_list":["post-70145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-accompany","tag-death","tag-dignity","tag-final","tag-journey","tag-seniors","tag-strangers","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70145","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=70145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n
\n
Read Full Article At Source <\/a>
\n