SINGAPORE — For thousands of families, a migrant domestic worker is no longer simply someone who cooks, cleans or keeps a household running.
Increasingly, she may also be the person helping an elderly parent out of bed, managing dementia-related behaviour, monitoring medication, assisting a wheelchair user, caring for a person with disabilities or responding when a medical emergency unfolds at home.
And as Singapore grows older, that role is becoming increasingly important.
As Singapore’s population ages, migrant domestic workers are increasingly caring for seniors with dementia, disabilities and serious illnesses. Cases involving untrained helpers are raising calls for better training, job matching and caregiver protections.
What happens when the person entrusted with a vulnerable family member has never been properly trained for the job?
FROM HOUSEKEEPER TO FRONT-LINE CAREGIVER
Singapore now has more than 308,000 migrant domestic workers, according to figures cited in Parliament by labour MP Yeo Wan Ling earlier this year.
That workforce has become deeply embedded in Singapore’s caregiving system as families balance jobs, children and increasingly complex eldercare responsibilities.
But caregiving can demand skills far beyond ordinary household work.
A worker caring for someone with dementia, Parkinson’s disease, stroke complications or physical disability may need to know how to transfer a person safely between a bed and wheelchair, prevent falls, recognise warning signs, handle feeding difficulties and respond to emergencies.
Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower itself advises that domestic workers caring for seniors may require specialised training, including skills for helping elderly people move safely or transfer between a bed and wheelchair.
The problem arises when those specialised responsibilities are assigned before those skills have been acquired.
ONE WORKER SAID SHE HAD TO LEARN THE HARD WAY
CNA TODAY reported the experience of “Anna”, a Myanmar domestic worker whose name was changed for privacy.
She arrived in Singapore in 2023 with an interest in caring for elderly people, but said her first placement involved becoming the sole caregiver for a woman in her 80s with dementia—despite having neither caregiving experience nor formal training.
After the woman fell and became wheelchair-bound, Anna’s responsibilities increased further.
She later transferred to another household, where she cared for a bedridden man with dementia who was physically larger than her.
The job, she said, took a significant toll.
Eventually, after moving to another agency, Anna was matched with an employer who arranged extensive caregiving training before she began caring for his elderly parents-in-law.
That training later proved crucial.
When her employer’s mother-in-law choked on food, Anna used the Heimlich manoeuvre she had learned during her course and successfully dislodged the obstruction.
Her employer told CNA TODAY that without that training, the outcome could have been fatal.
The contrast between Anna’s earlier placements and her current one illustrates a central issue: the same worker may struggle or succeed depending heavily on preparation, expectations and support.
THEN THERE IS THE 104KG CASE
Among the most disturbing examples raised in the CNA report was the case of an Indonesian worker identified by the pseudonym “Safira”.
According to HOME executive director Dr Stephanie Chok, Safira was expected to care for an immobile elderly woman weighing 104kg despite having no formal training.
HOME separately published a detailed account of Safira’s case in May 2025.
The organisation said Safira had initially been told that the care recipient weighed about 70kg, only to discover after starting work that she weighed 104kg.
HOME alleged that Safira had to move the woman between her bed, wheelchair and bathroom largely by herself, even though hospital personnel had advised that moving someone of that size required several caregivers.
HOME said Safira also carried out household duties for a family of five.
According to the organisation, her workday stretched from around 5.30am until 10pm, with her sleep interrupted multiple times at night to provide care.
HOME said she lost 9kg within four months and developed chronic pain.
CNA reported that Safira eventually sought assistance and requested a transfer. According to Dr Chok, the complaints were not taken up for further investigation and her transfer request was denied; she later returned to Indonesia.
These details are allegations and accounts provided by HOME and should not be interpreted as independent findings against the employer.
But Safira’s experience has become an example used by the advocacy organisation to argue that workers performing intensive caregiving need stronger training, clearer job scopes and better protections.
TRAINING EXISTS—BUT THE GAP REMAINS
Singapore is not starting from zero.
The Caregivers Training Grant, or CTG, subsidises approved training for caregivers of seniors and people with disabilities.
The grant was enhanced to provide up to S$400 per care recipient, and the Agency for Integrated Care had more than 240 subsidised courses available as of January 2026.
Government programmes cover areas including dementia, disability, eldercare and post-hospitalisation care.
Singapore’s Age Well SG programme also says up to 4,400 subsidised caregiver-training places a year across around 200 courses are being scaled up.
Other organisations have begun expanding their own programmes.
The Straits Times reported in June that more than 370 migrant domestic workers had completed pilot caregiving courses organised by the Centre for Domestic Employees, covering areas such as dementia care, eldercare, infant care and first aid.
This suggests the problem is not simply whether courses exist.
The harder questions are whether workers receive the right training before taking on complex cases, whether employers recognise the need for it, and whether agencies accurately match a worker’s experience with a family’s actual requirements.
LANGUAGE CAN ALSO BECOME A SAFETY ISSUE
Clinical skills are only part of the equation.
Imagine an elderly person with dementia waking in confusion at 2am and speaking almost exclusively in Hokkien, Cantonese or Mandarin—while the person caring for them cannot understand what they are asking.
That can turn an already difficult situation into an emotionally charged one.
CNA reported cases in which language barriers contributed to frustration between elderly care recipients and domestic workers.
Singapore has begun addressing this gap.
In February, The Straits Times reported that 56 migrant domestic workers graduated from conversational Hokkien classes run through the Singapore Hokkien Huay Kuan Cultural Academy and NTUC’s Centre for Domestic Employees.
The courses use real-life scenarios to help workers communicate more effectively with elderly Singaporeans, while Cantonese programmes have also been offered through other partnerships.
The issue is more significant than convenience.
When caregiving involves confusion, pain, medication, mobility or behavioural changes associated with dementia, the ability to communicate can directly influence trust and cooperation.
DEMAND FOR SKILLED HELPERS IS ALREADY RISING
Families appear increasingly willing to pay for workers with stronger caregiving credentials.
CNA previously reported that employment firms had seen demand for “premium” or highly skilled domestic workers rise by as much as 30 per cent over several years.
Agencies also reported that employers were willing to pay skilled workers around 10 per cent more in some cases.
Some workers were undergoing training in blood-pressure monitoring, blood-sugar checks, infection detection, safe patient transfers and other eldercare skills.
This trend could intensify as Singapore’s population ages.
The country reached “super-aged” status in 2026, meaning at least one in five citizens is aged 65 or older, according to government remarks reported by The Straits Times.
More seniors living longer also means more families confronting dementia, frailty, mobility problems and chronic illness at home.
And that means the domestic worker who once mainly handled housekeeping may increasingly become one of the household’s most important caregivers.
PARLIAMENT HAS ALREADY TAKEN NOTICE
In January, MP Yeo Wan Ling called for a broader overhaul of how Singapore supports migrant domestic workers performing caregiving duties.
Among her proposals were expanded advanced-care training, language and dialect classes, better job matching through employment agencies, stronger healthcare and mental-health support for workers, and a review of the migrant domestic worker levy framework.
She argued that caregiving today extends well beyond conventional housekeeping and increasingly includes dementia care, disability support, post-hospital recovery and senior care.
The Ministry of Manpower responded that it would continue expanding care options while keeping them affordable and accessible.
Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Manpower Shawn Huang also pointed to the wide range of subsidised courses already available through the Agency for Integrated Care.
BUT TRAINING ALONE MAY NOT FIX THE PROBLEM
Experts interviewed by CNA stressed that putting every worker through a course would not automatically solve everything.
Correct job matching matters.
So does honesty during recruitment.
If an employment agency tells a prospective worker she will mainly accompany an elderly person but the actual job requires lifting, feeding, toileting, medication management and repeated overnight assistance, even a trained worker may find herself overwhelmed.
Similarly, families need realistic expectations about what one person can physically and emotionally manage.
HOME has advocated a standard care-assessment matrix that would better match a household’s caregiving demands with a domestic worker’s abilities.
Some agencies and experts interviewed by CNA also supported the idea of standardised basic caregiver training before workers begin complex caregiving assignments.
The need for accurate matching is not theoretical.
In June, The Straits Times reported that Singapore’s Small Claims Tribunals ordered an employment agency to compensate a bedridden elderly woman after finding that the agency had overstated a domestic worker’s Mandarin-language ability.
The case demonstrated how seemingly simple details such as language proficiency can become crucial when a worker is hired specifically to care for a vulnerable person.
THE REAL QUESTION IS WHO IS CARING FOR THE CAREGIVER
Singapore’s reliance on migrant domestic workers has helped countless families keep ageing parents and vulnerable relatives at home.
For many households, these workers make the difference between a family member being able to remain in familiar surroundings and needing more expensive institutional care.
But that reliance creates responsibilities on both sides.
A domestic worker cannot simply be transformed into a dementia specialist, rehabilitation aide, nurse, behavioural therapist and around-the-clock caregiver because the household suddenly needs those services.
Training matters.
Accurate job descriptions matter.
Proper lifting equipment matters.
Rest matters.
Language matters.
And matching the worker to the person receiving care matters.
The story of a worker reportedly struggling to move a 104kg elderly woman alone may be the most dramatic example.
But the larger issue is much harder to ignore.
As Singapore grows older and more families turn to domestic workers for care, the question is no longer simply whether the country has enough helpers.
It is whether the people quietly becoming Singapore’s front-line home caregivers are being given the skills, information and support needed to care safely—for the elderly, and for themselves.
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