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 ABOUT 200 needy elderly residents living in south-eastern Singapore will get free two-way transport for their medical appointments from this month.
The South East Community Development Council (CDC) and SMRT have banded together to start the service, in the hope that it will put an end to these residents skipping their doctors’ appointments because they cannot afford the cost of transport.
A CDC spokesman said: “Due to their weak and frail physical conditions, these residents aren’t able to take the bus or the MRT. They therefore have to rely on point to-point transport services such as non-emergency ambulances and taxis.”
Only authorised social service staff who work with the beneficiaries of the service can make taxi bookings. Neither the beneficiaries nor their relatives will be able to do so, to prevent abuse of the service for other purposes.
The CDC said no cap will be put on the number of transport bookings that can be made in a month, though it recommends that an emergency ambulance be called if medical attention is urgently needed.
Demand for point-to-point transport services is headed only one way – up. This is because the CDC has jurisdiction over a district that is greying more rapidly than the rest of Singapore: 12 per cent of its residents are aged 65 or older, against the national average of 8.7 per cent.
 For a start, it expects to make 1,000 trips in the first year of the free service covering areas such as Marine Parade, East Coast and Potong Pasir.
The service will be funded by a $15,000 contribution from SMRT; a dollar-for-dollar matching contribution from the CDC has put $30,000 in the kitty to fund the first year of the service.
When the CDC called for transport providers to tender for the contract to run the service, SMRT made the only offer, so its taxis will provide the service.
SMRT’s donation comes from its in-house “Gift of Mobility” programme, set up to support the transport needs of those with disabilities or who are less mobile. It said it is making similar donations to other CDCs, so they can use the money to meet the transport needs of the disabled or needy in their districts.
The CDC’s senior manager for social services, Mr Noriman Ali Salam, said a study which the CDC did showed that some of the district’s poorest residents were defaulting on their medical treatments because they cannot afford transport fares.
An existing transport service run by the CDC, Tembusu Transport Service, ferries the disabled and elderly to and from their medical appointments but charges concessionary rates.
But even these subsidised fares have been a stretch for some, and grassroots and community groups have used their own funds to pay for some residents’ transport fares, said Mr Noriman.
One beneficiary of this new scheme is Madam Safiah Ahmad, 57, who has been bedridden since 1995 following a fall. She needs to see the doctor every three to five months.
Her eldest daughter Norasiah Abdullah, who is her main caregiver, told The Straits Times she is glad her mother is eligible for the free transport service.
Ms Norasiah cannot hold a full-time job because of her caregiving duties; of her three other siblings, only one gives her money – $150 a month.
The family survives on rations from a mosque and a charity. Because of this, Madam Safiah has put off her doctor’s appointments before, once for as long as three months, because their budget just could not stretch to cover that MRT ride to and from Changi General Hospital, when her daughter pushes her in a wheelchair.
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