So irritated, the nursing home is increasing the fees by another S$300 making it close to 2.2k a month we have to pay. And why? Because our very clever govt decided to increase the foreign worker levy thereby increasing the cost of employing the staff.

The standard response of the govt for any problem is to increase the levy. Whether it is to solve parking problems, "control" the traffic on the road by planting ERP gantries everywhere or imposing maid levies to moderate demand for maids in Singapore. I mean i knew this along but now that it is impacting me directly, i can really feel the pain.

If you want to increase levies to control the foreign worker population in Singapore, I can understand that. But why should this be applied to the elderly care sector? Is it fair? If you increase the cost of employing foreign staff at the homes, who will suffer? Do you think the nursing homes will absorb the fee increase? Obviously the costs will be passed on to the residents/families.

It was a tough decision for us to place dad at a nursing home already, and having to cope with paying the nursing home fees between myself and my sister. If we had a choice, do you really think that we want to place our parent at a home? We tried employing maid after maid, but they kept quitting and we keep having issues after issues. I can still remember the time when dad was discharged from the hospital after the stroke (where it took more than half a day to wait for a C class ward after he suffered from the stroke and they did nothing at A&E ward), he couldnt control his bowel movements and kept walking around and soiling the house. I remember my bro and I waking up in the middle of the night when we heard a loud crash because my dad tried to walk to the toilet himself and fell down in the toilet with his pants soiled. And we had to wash the soiled bedsheets, his clothes, clean up the mess and everything in the middle of the night. I remember crying because i felt so helpless and didnt know what to do. I remember we tried to put dad in daycare during the day and in the end, they didnt want to take dad anymore because they said that he smelled. And when i rushed home after work, i saw that the house was in a mess because he tried to feed himself and dirtied himself and everywhere. I mean what more could we have done? Its not a choice that we have to place him in the nursing home where he can get the appropriate care which he needs and which we are not able to provide at home.

Now with the fee increase, its really unfair that we have to suffer and who goes away laughing to the bank with all the $? The increased levy doesnt go to the home, obviously you know who the $ goes to (together with all the millions of revenue from taxes from income tax, ERP charges, maid levies etc). And what do they do with all the $ taken from Singaporeans? They threaten to withhold upgrading if you dont vote for them, pay millions a year to all the ministers and president and resurface the roads over and over again (at the same spot no less).

Wonderful. So much for a world class government, one that does not care about the citizens and their costs of living.