PM Lee Hsien Loong at the Assisi Hospice 40th Anniversary Charity Dinner

Mr Ronny Tan, Chairman of Assisi Hospice,

Mrs Tien, Chief Fundraiser and Opera singer, 

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am very happy to be here with you tonight to commemorate Assisi Hospice’s 40th Anniversary as well as 60 years of good work in Singapore by Sisters of the Franciscan Missionaries of the Divine Motherhood. Hospices serve a very important but seldom-talked-about role in a particular area of medical care. With medical progress, people are healthier and they live longer, but ultimately, some day, we will all depart from this world. Death is a reality of life and every year, some people — most old but some young and some very young — are stricken by a terminal illness. 

Good doctoring and medicine can extend the time that these patients have, often with a good quality of life. But beyond a point, patients, their families and their doctors all have to accept that they have done everything possible for the patients and yet, still the inevitable end draws near and more aggressive treatment will likely do more harm than good. And in such situations, they have to acknowledge the limits of medicine and care in our mankind. And it is better, wiser, kinder and more human instead to focus on making the patient comfortable and enable him to be at peace in the time that is left in his hands, to be among family and friends, to be left in their love, warmth and comfort and to be sustained by his or her faith.

I would like to share with you one story of somebody who went through this experience which I read about a couple of years ago and was moved by it. You may or may not have heard of this person. The person was Art Buchwald, a very famous American humourist. He used to write a column in the International Herald Tribune two or three times a week, 300 or 400 words — if you become his topic, you are in trouble — he was very modern, witty and humane. As he grew old, his kidneys were failing and he lost half a leg. He was in a hospital in an acute care facility and he happened to be in a lift when he saw a sign in the lift above the hospice and he decided to check it out.

Everything looked so good that in February 2006, which was about three-and-a-half years ago, Art Buchwald elected to forego dialysis and admitted himself into the hospice. He said, ‘My time has come, I want to be comfortable, I want to live the rest of my days in peace and happily’ and he lived happily. He wrote several articles in the hospice, including one entitled “Having A High Time Where You Least Expected”. He met a constant flow of his old friends who came to see him. He said, ‘Marvellous people are praising me before I am dead’. He spent quality time with his family and he enjoyed being able to eat anything he wanted, from home-cooked meals to McDonald’s hamburgers, to Haagen-Dazs frozen yoghurt.

Buchwald expected to be only two or three weeks in the hospice, but actually, he stayed for five months, which he said was ‘a swell time, the best time of my life’. And by then, to everybody’s surprise, including especially his, his kidneys had started working again and he was discharged. He was a humourist, you see, but finally, he passed on in January 2007, which was about eleven months later, at the age of 81, a ripe old age and a happy and a rounded peaceful end.

Not everyone can be as lucky as Art Buchwald, to be so cheerful about the prospect of dying or to get well enough to be discharged after a hospice stay. But his story is a testimony to what good hospices can do. Hospices provide care, comfort, companionship and compassion. They help patients and their families to find closure and give patients the opportunity to die with dignity, surrounded by love and not full of tubes, masks and drugs. 

Palliative care in Singapore has grown since the 1980s. Now, we have seven providers of hospice and home palliative care. Together, they serve 5,000 patients a year. The actual need is probably higher. More people would benefit from it, but they may not know about it or they may feel it a taboo, they do not want to think about it or to discuss it with a family or with a patient. So, we need more public education and more discussions about death between patients, their families and doctor. And not just when people are gravely ill, but when things look well, but memento mori — remember, one day, we all die.

If there is increased awareness, I expect there will be greater demand for palliative care. And this really means palliative care not only for cancer which people would understand and accept it better, but also to include diseases like end-stage organ failure or advanced dementia. The Ministry of Health is recruiting and training more palliative care doctors, nurses and social workers and is also introducing end-of-life care to nursing homes. And Tan Tock Seng Hospital, in particular, has started a pilot with seven nursing homes in the central region.

Assisi Hospice has been doing good work now for 40 years with very little publicity, but each year, Assisi helps many patients and their families. I would like to thank Assisi and the sisters for the good work done. We deeply appreciate the efforts of the dedicated staff and volunteers. Assisi needs the support of all of us. MOH gives some annual funding. We hope the community will also chip in. Volunteer if you can, but in any case, please contribute generously to tonight’s fundraising drive and if I may put in a good word, for next year’s fundraising drive as well. It will go a very long way towards helping patients at the hospice.

Thank you very much.