As you know, the Covid-19 virus can infect absolutely anyone, but it’s particularly deadly for the elderly.

When a resident of Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home tested positive for the virus, all staff at the old age home were immediately quarantined, but the virus had already spread.

On Monday (6 April), three more female residents of the home tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of cases linked to the cluster to 16.

One of their residents – an 86-year-old woman – died of complications due to Covid-19 last Friday.

It’s been a tough time for the old age home, and now they need our help.

Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home Asking for Donations of $300k After It Was Hit Hard by COVID-19

In a post on Facebook, the Thomson Lane home asked for donations after describing how hard they’ve been hit by the Covid-19 outbreak.

As the post says, it’s been a “difficult time” for Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home and they’ve had to step up measures to ensure that their residents and staff “stay protected and healthy”.

The old age home says that the Ministry of Health has been supplying them with Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) and that they appreciate all that has been donated so far, but they still need some financial assistance.

That’s why they set up the Lee Ah Mooi Caring Fund, a fund that aims to “ease the burden of affected residents and staff”.

According to the old age home, funds are needed for several reasons:

•  to assist families in offsetting their nursing fees and expenses during this period
•  to assist affected staff who have been on quarantine order and need help with daily living expenses such as food, and their utilities bill
• to pay for services that have been utilized during this difficult period (e.g. deep cleaning, food catering, laundry, biohazard waste management) which would have otherwise been self-funded by LAM
•  to pay for additional medical supplies such as medical graded hand wash, hand sanitiser and other items to step up our infection control measures during this period

The old age home is asking for $300,000, and so far, $84,128 has been raised in just five days.

According to Ray of Hope, Lee Ah Mooi Old Age Home has already raised $28,837 offline, and they have another ongoing crowdfunding campaign.

If you want to help out, you can make your donations at https://bit.ly/LAMHCaresFund.

Let’s Protect The Elderly

As previously mentioned, the elderly are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus; all the patients who have died from Covid-19 complications in Singapore were over the age of 64.

This is why we have to be very careful around our older family members, as well as elderly people we come across outdoors. And that’s also why the authorities have changed their tone for their advice for seniors.

Minimize contact with the older members of your family as much as possible. We’re not supposed to have family gatherings of any kind, and other than dropping groceries off for them, there’s no need to visit them and be in close contact.

There’s a reason why parents are no longer allowed to drop off their children at their grandparents’ place; we need to protect our older Singaporeans.

Be cautious, because the lives of your family members and fellow Singaporeans depend on it.