Thursday, May 15, 2025
Caregivers need more support. We owe it to them.
We owe it to them.
https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/caregivers-need-more-support-we-owe-it-to-them
2025-05-15
By---Nur Diyana Azman is a senior research assistant and Atiqah Lee is a research associate at the Centre for Ageing Research & Education (Care) at Duke-NUS Medical School.
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Linda (not her real name) wakes up before dawn to help her 82-year-old mother, Madam Toh, get out of bed, shower and dress.
Breakfast is a tedious process – slicing food into smaller pieces to prevent choking and ensuring her mother takes five different medications in the correct order and dosage.
The 58-year-old, who left a full-time career to care for her mother, barely has time to rest before heading to work. Her new job comes with less demanding hours but also less pay.
It’s hard for her to rest, even on days when she is not working. For the past 10 years, since Madam Toh suffered a stroke and a fall, Linda’s hours have been filled with tasks, errands and constant worrying. Is mum comfortable? Is she in pain? What does mum need?
Linda is exhausted but cannot sleep. She loves her mother, but love neither pays her bills nor provides the extra help she needs. How much longer can she hold up?
Linda’s struggles highlight that caregiving is not just emotionally and physically draining – it is also financially demanding. She considered hiring a migrant domestic worker. For about $850 a month, she could get live-in help and possibly return to full-time work.
But she shelved the idea: it would be difficult for a stranger to understand her mother’s temperament and needs. Instead, she relies on a mix of community-based care services, including home nursing and therapy. Even with subsidies, she must dip into her savings.
More financial support
The recent announcement of an enhanced Home Caregiving Grant (HCG) should offer some relief.
From April 2026, eligible caregivers who provide care to family members who permanently require some assistance with at least three of the six Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), will receive $600 per month – an increase from the current $400. The qualifying per capita household income threshold will also rise from $3,600 to $4,800, allowing more families to benefit.
But is this enough?
A study by the Centre for Ageing Research & Education (Care) at Duke-NUS Medical School, conducted from 2018 to 2022, estimated that family caregivers spend $1,745 worth of time each month caring for older adults with limitations in three or more ADLs. The same study showed that financial assistance ranked high as an unmet need among caregivers.
While the HCG is not meant to fully compensate caregiving costs, these findings underscore the significant financial strain that some caregivers would continue to shoulder, despite the grant.
The additional $200 per month might help defray costs for groceries or adult diapers, but it cannot restore Linda’s retirement security, which she sacrificed when she left her career. Nor does it ease the anxiety that an unexpected expense – a toothache, a broken wheelchair or aspirated food – could set her back financially.
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Barriers to support
A 2021 caregiver survey commissioned by the Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) found that more than half of the caregivers do not identify themselves as a “caregiver”. When caregiving is seen as a filial duty – an extension of being a child or a spouse – many do not realise it is a distinct role requiring systemic support, and therefore may not think of applying for grants or services that they could be eligible for.
This was the case with a 60-year-old caregiver whom we shall call Faridah. She didn’t know she qualified for financial assistance. That is why raising awareness is as important as the aid itself and without effective outreach, grants may remain underutilised.
A friend urged Faridah to apply for HCG a year after she had started caring for her mother. That is when she ran into a second hurdle: accessibility. Between medical assessments, financial forms and the exhaustion of managing everything else, the process felt like yet another hurdle in an already uphill battle.
Strict eligibility criteria through means-testing and cumbersome application processes also deter families from applying. Caregivers, already stretched thin, must navigate complex requirements and the burden of repetitive paperwork.
There is also another pertinent question we need to ask: Shouldn’t the grants be extended to non-family caregivers, such as close friends or neighbours, who provide consistent care? As family sizes shrink and caregiving configurations evolve, policies must adapt to and respond to these changing realities.
Putting support systems in place
Financial assistance alone is not enough – caregivers also need time, respite, and reliable support systems, the Care study found.
Expanding subsidised night and ad hoc respite care services could alleviate caregiver burnout, particularly if the services are located within immediate neighbourhoods.
Caregivers also sometimes struggle with social isolation and family conflict. They could benefit from peer support or structured professional intervention such as mediation services when family conflicts arise.
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Findings from a follow-up qualitative study by Care, conducted from 2021 to 2023, also showed that caregivers feel overwhelmed when navigating the care system, especially during transitions – such as placing a loved one in a nursing home or after their passing.
It would help caregivers if there were dedicated case managers or a “care concierge” service, to guide them through different circumstances.
In addition, workplace policies must enable flexible work arrangements, so caregivers do not face an impossible choice between employment and the well-being of their loved ones.
Mandating caregiving leave should also be considered. Caregivers often need flexibility and time off from work to support their loved ones during medical emergencies or hospital visits. For example, workers in Australia are usually entitled to 10 days of paid carer’s leave a year.
It is time we recognised that caregiving is a form of productive work that benefits every society – especially an ageing one. That is why we need to extend more support, including financial help, to caregivers.
Would we need to increase taxes to sustain such support? Perhaps not. Japan has in place the “Fureai Kippu” system, a community-based approach where people earn “time credits” by providing care to others and are later able to tap those credits to receive care when they need it.
Such alternative models are an imaginative use of national resources that ease the way towards a caring society.
At the heart of it, caregiving is not just a personal responsibility – it is a societal issue.
Linda and Faridah were two of the many caregivers that we interviewed for our research at Care, who struggled with the financial burden and emotional stress. We need to ease their load to build a nation that genuinely values those who care for others.
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Nur Diyana Azman is a senior research assistant and Atiqah Lee is a research associate at the Centre for Ageing Research & Education (Care) at Duke-NUS Medical School.
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Wednesday, May 14, 2025
Maybank CFO’s sacking — the allegations and rebuttals
Maybank CFO’s sacking — the allegations and rebuttals
05 May 2025, 03:30 pm
This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 28, 2025 - May 4, 2025
ON Feb 17, Malayan Banking Bhd (KL:MAYBANK) announced to Bursa Malaysia a change in a principal officer — its chief financial officer (CFO) Khalijah Ismail had left the group “pursuant to an internal inquiry by the bank”.
Little else was divulged, but it was obviously not voluntary and was confirmed by Khalijah herself in a statement to The Edge: “I strongly disagree with the bank’s decision. No specific reasons were given for my termination, other than a claim that the bank had lost trust and confidence in me … I categorically deny any wrongdoing.”
The former CFO had been with the banking group for 33 years.
Maybank, in an online briefing with analysts on Feb 18, assuaged any concerns about the change, saying it was the result of non-compliance with internal requirements and processes.
No details on the alleged non-compliance was given but The Edge has sighted the show cause letter given to Khalijah and her response to it.
Maybank’s account of what happened
The show cause letter issued to Khalijah showed that her removal had to do with an attempt to scam the bank of US$985,426 (RM4.77 million). She was designated as the “incident owner”, that is, the person targeted by the scammers.
According to the allegations against her, Khalijah had on April 24, 2024, at 7.47am, received a message on her personal phone (as opposed to her work mobile phone) from a person claiming to be Alvin Lee Hang Eng, CEO of Maybank Singapore, using a Malaysian number (0176257610) that was not known to her. The person impersonating Lee requested her to make a payment on behalf of Maybank Singapore. At 12.53pm, Khalijah got a Zoom call from the impersonator, after which communication was via WhatsApp messaging.
According to the show cause letter, at 1.16pm, the Lee impersonator asked Khalijah via WhatsApp about Maybank’s bank balance, to which she responded that, “Maybank’s balance is in the billions!”
Subsequently, Khalijah received on her personal phone WhatsApp messages from a person claiming to be Maybank president and group CEO Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli using another number (01121137912) that was not known to her, supporting the Lee impersonator’s request for the transfer of US$985,426 to Zhuha Trading Ltd of Hong Kong via JP Morgan Chase Bank Bhd.
Although the transfer was made to JP Morgan, it was not immediately sent to the account of Zhuha Trading. The payment was held back for an extended period by JP Morgan. This was a red flag to Khalijah that something was amiss.
At 9.26pm, she called Lee on his official phone about the messages. He replied that he did not have her personal number to begin with, after which she informed him that someone was impersonating him.
Between 9.31pm and 9.33pm, Khalijah instructed the cancellation of the US$985,426 payment and for steps to be taken to have the funds returned. At 10.08pm, she was informed that JP Morgan had held back the payment, so the bank suffered no financial loss.
Eight months later, on Dec 10, 2024, Maybank’s group audit team conducted an interview with Khalijah on the transactions and events that took place on April 24 and an investigation interview was undertaken by executives with Maybank’s group industrial relations on Jan 13, 2025.
The executives questioned why Khalijah did not attempt to contact Lee or Khairussaleh on their phone numbers known or familiar to her to authenticate the request and subsequent instructions prior to her instructing the transfer of the US$985,426. She was also asked about the time gap between 7.47am and 9.39pm on April 24, from the time she received the Lee impersonator’s message to the time she recalled the payment of US$985,426.
She also allegedly “failed to properly report the external fraud/attempted scam to the appropriate parties in the bank and/or escalate the matter to Khairussaleh”. The show cause letter said, “It was noted that as of Jan 13, 2025, you still have not notified the president and group CEO [Khairussaleh] of the said incident.”
Khalijah was also questioned for not being suspicious, as Lee — who is based in Singapore — had used a Malaysian number not known to her to contact her. The question on Maybank’s bank balance should have also raised a red flag.
Maybank took issue that Khalijah only informed the head of the bank’s fraud unit, but did not follow up or validate the contents of a police report made to ensure its accuracy. She was also questioned about her emphasising in all her conversations with staff who were involved in the transfer that it was strictly private and confidential, and that no other employees be involved in the matter.
In total, there were seven allegations against Khalijah. They include her failure to call for confirmation and that she only reached out to the real Lee at 9.26pm, long after the transaction had been initiated.
Also, as the “incident owner”, Khalijah did not report the “near miss” or impersonation of Lee and Kharusalleh to her superiors or to Bank Negara Malaysia’s Operational Risk Reporting System, suggesting that she had ignored the significance and/or severity of the incident. She also did not lodge the police report herself despite a requirement that the “incident owner” must lodge a police report once a fraud is discovered, irrespective of the amount involved, as per Maybank’s procedures.
While a police report was lodged, it was done by a manager with the bank’s fraud management unit. However, the report was allegedly faulty as Khalijah’s communication with the head of the bank’s fraud unit had been inaccurate in that it was not made clear that the transaction had been authorised and routed for payment before being recalled and that it was only a “near miss” because JP Morgan had delayed approval which, in turn, led to her recalling the payment.
The show cause letter states: “Any one or all of the above stated allegations of misconduct levelled against you is/are serious in nature, and in doing so, you have breached your fiduciary duty as the group CFO, neglected to discharge your duties and obligations as the group CFO of the bank, knowingly and/or negligently breached the bank’s policies, failed to act in the best interest of the bank and/or failed to exercise due care and diligence as expected from you to safeguard the interest of the bank.”
Khalijah’s account of what happened
In her response to the allegations made in the show cause letter, Khalijah “categorically denies all allegations”.
She says she had acted decisively and swiftly to ensure that the bank’s interests were fully protected, and that the incident did not result in any financial loss to the bank. “The show cause letter presents a selective and incomplete account of the events surrounding the incident.”
Khalijah explains that maintaining multiple phones is common among senior officers. Thus, she believed that the Malaysian number used by the imposter was indeed Lee’s personal number. She says the imposter, in a text message, had sought her assistance on a confidential matter he was allegedly working on and inquired about her availability for a Zoom call.
Shortly after, she received a text message from another number which she believed to be the personal number of Maybank’s president and group CEO. But this was an imposter who mentioned that they (the people posing as Khairussaleh and Lee) were working on a confidential project, on which the details would be provided via the Zoom call.
Khalijah says she received another text message from yet another Malaysian number (01139560619), which she again believed to belong to Khairussaleh, using another line for the confidential project to be discussed.
The Zoom call, which commenced at 12.56pm, lasted for five minutes, after which the Lee impersonator sent a message saying the connection was bad and suggested that they continue via WhatsApp. The imposter then informed her that “we” — meaning he and Khairussaleh’s impersonator — were in the process of acquiring a new company to expand Maybank’s foreign operations and they had been working on a deal for several months, and any information leak could jeopardise the project, indicating the need for secrecy.
“He [the fake Lee] further stated that my assistance was required because the project required, what he stated at that time, to be completed with privacy, speed and efficiency,” Khalijah says in her reply. She adds that the Lee impersonator wanted to avoid any risk of insider trading, thus all communication would be limited to WhatsApp messages between her and him.
At 3.02pm, the Lee impersonator sent remittance details to her for the first deposit of the said merger, with payment of US$985,426 to Zhuha Trading in Hong Kong. Khalijah says she had queried him on the details, including whether the deposit payment needed to be made first before receiving further information, whether the payment needed to be made on the same day, and the nature of the merger, to which the imposter replied that he was not authorised to disclose additional information as yet.
At 3.09pm, she informed the person she thought to be Khairussaleh about this confidential transaction, that she had received instructions to make the deposit and shared details provided by the Lee impersonator. The person posing as Khairussaleh promptly confirmed the information and gave his approval.
Khalijah says, “I genuinely believed that the instructions originated from Lee and Khairussaleh.”
At 4.45pm, she received information that the payment of US$985,426 had been successfully routed to the agent bank, JP Morgan, for processing. At 6.28pm, she was informed that JP Morgan had put the payment on hold due to sanction screening.
Khalijah then attempted to call the Lee impersonator, but he did not answer. Instead, he sent a message saying he was in a meeting with the bank’s lawyers and reiterated that communication should be via WhatsApp messages.
An update to the Khairussaleh impersonator received the response and instruction to ensure that the payment goes through. He reiterated the need to communicate via WhatsApp to avoid insider information leaking out.
From 8.06pm to 9.15pm, Khalijah was in communication with a JP Morgan executive, and she grew suspicious when the screening took longer than expected.
She says in her reply to the show cause letter: “At approximately 9.27pm, it then occurred to me that the payment instructions might have been a fraudulent attempt by individuals impersonating Lee and Khairussaleh.”
She adds that she had attempted to call the JP Morgan executive but failed, after which she sent a message to hold the payment while she ascertained the legitimacy of the transaction.
Sometime between 8.59pm and 9.25pm, Khalijah finally contacted Lee using his work number, but he didn’t reply. At 9.32pm, she sent a WhatsApp message asking him if he had contacted her on her personal number. At 9.42pm, she informed him via WhatsApp that there could be someone impersonating him, after which Lee replied that he had not contacted her.
Khalijah says that at 10.11pm, she managed to confirm that the payment was on hold and at 10.15pm, she reported the incident to Maybank’s head of the fraud unit. The next day, April 25, 2024, she contacted the head of the fraud unit, and he confirmed that both a police report and a report to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission would be lodged in the afternoon.
Internal audit enquiries commenced in August 2024 and the findings were shared with Khalijah shortly after, in September and October 2024.
She says her meeting with the bank’s group audit team, which took place on Dec 10 last year, was a casual discussion rather than a formal interview and lasted only 40 minutes. At the meeting, she explained that she had expected the police report on the April 24 issue to be handled at the working level by the officers involved in executing the payment instructions.
She also said she wanted to inform Khairussaleh of the April 24, 2024, incident in January 2025 at a one-on-one performance appraisal with him. However, the session was rescheduled to Feb 5.
In summary, Khalijah’s main contention is that the bank suffered no financial loss. And she opines that her Zoom call with the Lee impersonator was equivalent to a call back. “I genuinely believed I was speaking to the real Alvin,” she says in her response to the show cause letter. “There was nothing unusual about the demeanour or body language of the imposter Lee.”
Khalijah, in response to other allegations, says she had adhered to the bank’s reporting guidelines on non-financial risk by immediately reporting the incident to the fraud unit, which is the first line of defence, and she had shared the relevant WhatsApp messages with the head of the fraud unit.
The head of the fraud unit, she says, was aware on the evening of April 24, 2024, that there were people impersonating Lee and Khairussaleh. He had other details of the attempted scam as well.
She also says, “I must state that in my experience as a senior management officer with the bank, I have never encountered a situation where a senior management officer was required to personally lodge a police report over a scam or attempted scam incident. Typically, the lodging of a police report on behalf of the bank is facilitated through the fraud unit or another unit responsible for handling fraud-related cases.”
The matter is now with the Industrial Court as Khalijah has filed a complaint of wrongful dismissal.
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凡夫：挚友
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/lifestyle/columns/story20250514-6326770
2025-05-14
人生总是隔不断刻骨铭心的血脉亲情，也离不开儿女情长的恋情和相濡以沫的夫妻情，还有患难与共真情挚友的浓情厚意。
漫漫人生路走到了后半程，随着岁月流逝，眼下亲情、夫妻情仍存，而知心朋友越来越少。近年来参与同学聚会的老同学逐年减少，而可推心置腹、仍然健在的朋友也不多了，令人感叹逝去岁月之无情。
不久前获得一个意外惊喜，远在万里之外一位久别的中学老同学为我发来短信。他是从其他老同学那里辗转才获知我的联络方式，并发来祝贺我生日快乐的短信。好难得毕业后数十载的老友竟还记挂着当年的同窗情谊。
拜通讯科技的便捷，另有一位20多年前曾与我在同一间公司共事的老同事，岁晚通过WhatsApp发来问候还附上专治老人病的偏方，并传来他孩子结婚大喜的视频，令人欢喜雀跃。记得当年我还参加过老同事本人的婚礼，20多年时光也冲不淡我们的同事情谊，真难得！
真挚的友谊可跨越地域，更禁得起时间的考验，如美酒般越陈越厚醇。眼下可与自己相聚言欢的朋友固然难能可贵，但在远方仍记挂在心间的朋友堪称挚友，尤其值得倍加珍惜。
交友贵精不贵多，泛泛之交可有可无，见利忘义者避之则吉，真情挚友和良师益友，则多多益善。网上看到一则道出朋友真谛的短文，很是生动：
朋友是琴，演奏一生的美妙；朋友是茶，品味一生的清香。
朋友是笔，写出一生的幸福；朋友是歌，唱出一生的祝福。
真挚的友谊，是生活不可或缺的情感依托。我想，在你的婚礼上能欢笑举杯祝福你；当你迷茫时苦口良药为你指点迷津；你有难时可为你排忧解难；年迈时还能来到你病床前问候你；有幸尚能参加你的葬礼的朋友，是值得你庆幸有缘结交的挚友。
便秘：老人长年便秘不适可诱发焦虑抑郁症
庄秀慧
新明日报发布
2025年5月11日 09:00
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老人长年便秘不适 可诱发焦虑抑郁症
https://www.zaobao.com.sg/lifestyle/health/story20250511-6320393
许多老年人都有便秘困扰。养生保健中医诊所的林丽明医师在接受《活得好》访问时指出，60岁以上群体中，最常见的是功能性便秘，且随年龄增长，患病率也逐渐上升。
功能性便秘指的是排便困难，但肠道没有结构性异常，也不属于代谢性疾病或肠易激综合征。这种便秘的表现包括：
■每周排便少于3次
■排便持续困难或不畅
■粪质干硬、排便费力
■有肛门或直肠堵塞感
林医师指出，这种便秘通常病程较长，容易反复发作，常与患者自身的脏腑功能退化、饮食习惯、活动量减少、心理压力等因素有关。
年长者因咀嚼与消化能力减弱、活动减少、饮食不够多样化，更容易出现便秘问题。
长期便秘带来的不适感，也可能引发焦虑、抑郁等情绪问题，进一步加重便秘症状，形成恶性循环，严重影响生活质量与身心健康。
林医师提醒，别忽视长期便秘。建议从饮食、作息、情绪管理等方面着手调理，如有需要应求医治疗。
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