Short-term care option for caregivers who need a break.
Introduction
This is a special short-term care service offered at selected nursing homes to support caregivers who:
- Need a short, full-time break for personal or medical reasons
- Need help as their domestic helper goes on home leave
- Require a break at night to rest, as their loved one has challenging night-time behaviour
Who is this service for
The senior must:
- Need help in most of their activities of daily living and/or have daily nursing care needs.
- Have a stable medical condition.
- Does not need urgent medical attention.
- Have a long-term care plan in place
- Have a plan to return home at the end of the respite period
Services provided
Read more about services offered at nursing homes here.
Cost
Daily room and board starts from $131 for an open ward (excluding administration fees, consumables, and a refundable deposit), before any government subsidies.
To qualify for subsidies, your loved one will need to be a Singapore Citizen or PR.
Subsidies are also means-tested (i.e. there is an income criteria).
Click here to find out more about means-testing.
You can also talk to a medical social worker at the hospital or polyclinic if you need help with the fees.
How to apply
You will need to get a referral from a hospital, polyclinic or GP who is familiar with your loved ones’ condition and needs. You may also contact the service provider for a discussion.
As part of the documents needed for the application, you will need to prepare a copy of your loved one’s medical report which contain his/ her chest X-ray results for the referral application. The medical report must:
- Be dated no earlier than no earlier than 6 months from the date you intend for your loved one to be admitted into the nursing home.
- Contain the following information of your loved one:
- Diagnosis
- Clinical history
- Current functional status
- Cognitive and behavioural symptoms (if applicable)
- Chest X-ray results
- Drug allergy history and current list of medications
- Type of nursing procedures required and due date for change
- COVID-19 vaccination history
- Supporting documents (e.g. helper’s air tickets)
The medical report can be obtained:
- By using your loved one’s hospital discharge summary, if he/she was discharged not more than 6 months ago.
- Through your loved one’s regular GP.
- Through participating medical facilities like polyclinics and SATA CommHealth.
Do note that:
- You have to submit the referral applications 4 weeks before the date you intend to start using this service in the nursing home.
- You may need to provide other supporting documents if requested.
- There are limited spaces in the nursing homes offering this service. Whether you are successful depends on whether there is a nursing home available during the period you are looking at, and whether the nursing home is able to provide the care your loved one needs.
You can also visit an AIC Link to get help with the application.
