ELDERLY CARE IS NOT MY FIRST CHOICE PROFESSION

Managing care centres, nursing homes or old folks was never my first choice of profession, not even when I was managing two of them during my time at IHM Sdn Bhd. It was just a job. True that I had many wonderful stories talking to the residents, but it never dawns on me to be ‘my vocation’ or ‘my calling’. Not until 2012 when I left IHM’s employment.

(Visiting the Home where I got started.)

Suddenly all those people I met over the years kept popping up. One of them was Carol Yip, The CEO of Agedcare Sdn Bhd, she called and invited me to be part of PEMANDU expert panel. PEMANDU is Malaysia transformation think-tank and they conducted many conference and discussion which they call LAB, short for laboratory where many issues are put on the table with teams of experts to experiment and tinker with the problems and then formulate plausible and possible solutions. 

                             (A testimonial letter from the now disbanded Pemandu)

The lab I went to was on Senior Living and Aging. My personal experience with Pemandu was that there are some good decisions that came out of the lab. It is not perfect, but it is a good start.

From there on I kept moving in the circles of aging issues, friends kept calling me to give solutions for their aging parents and its related problems. And in 2016 I was invited to be a consultant for Managed Care Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Agedcare. My job was simple, to visit nursing homes, review them and if they meet our stringent requirements I will sign them up as a panel for Managed Care, who in return will recommend to their clients.

I was generally disappointed with many homes and centres that I had visited, smelly, dirty and overcrowded. It is nothing like the two IHM homes, I would sincerely consider it one of the best in Petaling Jaya in terms of services, quality and price. Still, how I wish every elderly has an apartment like that in Bournemouth.

In 2016, I met an old doctor friend from the Ministry of Health and he encouraged me to get myself certified in elderly care and I did.

Some people set their goals, and some had it thrown at them. In my case it was the latter. As an encouragement for all those people who do not know what they are going to do with their life or where they are going, do not frown nor fret, keep your senses up to see, hear or even smell what God has planned for you. Most important God has placed many wonderful mentors along my way. Four of them made a difference to my journey and somehow showed me my path whom I shall mentioned later.