A 7-storey building situated along 48 Hougang Avenue 8 serves about 285 residents, including 114 residents living with dementia. The nursing home seeks to improve the quality of life for ageing Singaporeans and to facilitate ageing in the community. The Nursing Home has adopted a person-centric approach in providing physical, medical, emotional and social support for clients. A total of 160 employees, comprising of healthcare professionals and support staff, run the THK Nursing Home.
For more information, please visit the Thye Hua Kwan Nursing Home website: www.thknh.org.sg
The Nursing Home is built with elder-friendly infrastructure, featuring amenities such as landscape gardens, a rehabilitative gym, wheelchair-friendly facilities and localised grab-bars.
Programmes and Initiatives
In partnership with a host of organisations, a series of programmes are in place to keep the residents engaged and actively stimulated to counter the four major problems of loneliness, boredom, despair and isolation for those who stay in residential care.
Schools
Regular engagement programmes have been established with various schools around the vicinity. Montfort Junior School students from various CCA groups perform and interact with the residents on a fortnightly basis.
Simple dementia therapy sessions such as usage of flashcards of old landmarks to invoke memories and newspaper reading sessions are also conducted by students from Hougang Secondary School every Friday afternoon.
Secondary 2 students from Xin Min Secondary School helped to propose activities that benefit the residents for a weekly engagement session.
Nanyang Technological University’s Welfare Service Club provide volunteers to support and join in during in-house event and outings. These arrangements ensure that our residents remain active as well as provide an opportunity for the students involved to learn about effective planning and enhance their social interaction skills.
Community Partners
The Nursing Home also actively works with grassroots organisations, be it for donations or engagement collaborations. This includes the Residents’ Committee, People’s Association Grassroots Committee, Aljunied GRC Grassroots, and the Social Service Offices (Hougang, Sengkang, Serangoon).
Building Capabilities
Other partnerships in the pipe-line include support from the North East Community Development Council who have a series of programmes that will potentially allow us to enhance our capabilities to introduce more activities for the residents through the resources provided. Another would be a partnership with Silver Ribbon Singapore, where we are exploring bringing them in to conduct talks and workshops on various mental health issues such as embracing dementia as well as stress management for our care staff.
Alongside activities to keep our residents engaged, the Nursing Home is also looking to enhance our capabilities to ensure that the needs of our residents are met. We are partnering organisations such as The Workers’ Party Community Fund to receive donation items that would be useful for the residents. We are also supporting the Social Service Office by offering possible job opportunities to job seekers within the community.
Innovation & Productivity
The Nursing Home is also exploring collaboration opportunities with Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) to execute innovation projects to improve the facilities and find ways to increase manpower productivity. Student members of the interior design faculty will propose purpose built designs for real world enhancements. Faculty members of the school will also take in projects that can assist us to solve real world problems in the healthcare institutional space.
Expansion
In answering to the nation’s call for more eldercare services in the Intermediate & Long Term Care (ILTC) Sector, Thye Hua Kwan Nursing Home Limited was also awarded the contract to provide Home Personal Care & Interim Care Services. With existing Home Care Services offered at our Senior Care Centre in the Kaki Bukit area, the organisation has taken an integrated approach to consolidate the services as “THKNH Home Care Services”. These services, also including the Home Health programmes such as Home Medical and Home Nursing.
Courtesy posting by NextLifeBook.com