Madam Cecilia David, 77

An older person’s experience of an age-friendly primary health care clinic

Madam Cecilia David, 77 used to dread her medical appointments but not any more since she started going to the Hua Mei Seniors Clinic (HMSC) run by the Tsao Foundation in Singapore five years ago.

She found the unhurried pace of consultations, short waiting time, and elderly-friendly facilities at the outpatient clinic a very pleasant change from the exhausting long wait, rushed consultations, and confusion over appointments and medications she had experienced at government hospitals and polyclinics.

At HMSC, she found the clinical staff very attentive and interested in older people. They seemed never short of patience listening to her multiple medical problems. The nurses arranged her medication in easy-to-use pill boxes, and the doctor ‘always makes me laugh’, said Madam Cecilia who is single and living alone in a one-bedroom rental flat in a public housing estate nearby.

About once every two months, a day care centre for older people in her neighbourhood will arrange free transportation to take Madam Cecilia to the clinic - a very important consideration for older people like her who is semi-ambulant, and needs a wheelchair to get around outside of her home.

She also has no fear of falling or missing a step as the clinic has a clear walkway, and is retrofitted with ramps for wheelchairs, comfortable chairs with arm rests, non-slip tiles and grab bars in the toilets, and good lighting.

HMSC was selected by WHO last September as the first test site for an Age-Friendly Primary Health Clinic (PHC) in Singapore. It is one of four direct clinical services for older people provided by the Tsao Foundation, and is located in Bukit Merah, an old public housing estate with many seniors in the southern part of Singapore. The Singapore clinic which only serves older patients aged 60 years or over, is modelled on WHO’s ‘Age-Friendly Principles for PHC centres. The clinic’s attention to age-friendly details makes every visit a positive experience which Madam Cecilia looks forward to, and is best summed up by Dr Tan Chek Wee, an aged care physician at HMSC: “As a geriatric clinic, we don’t hurry our patients. You take time to understand the issues that affect them, like their environment and their perception of disease … And as you develop a deeper understanding of the patient, you find that what you are managing is a person, not a disease.”