Lack of retirement savings greatly impacts healthcare in your golden years

SHAH ALAM - The lack of retirement savings will greatly affect the quality of health care as one head into their golden years.

Expressing his concern for Malaysia's ageing society, Malaysian Healthy Ageing Society adviser Professor Nathan Vytialingam said retirees will need every penny they could save in order to sustain a healthy lifestyle that can help reduce the risk of falling sick.

Commenting on the recent announcement by the government that would allow depositors to withdraw a further RM10,000 from their Employee Provident Fund (EPF), Nathan said further withdrawals could have adverse impacts in the future.

"If the public withdraws money at this point, in their retirement age, there won't be enough savings in case if they have any health issues.

"Many of them used their EPF to purchase cars, education, and house so the public needs to be wise for the sake of their own long-term survival," he said to Sinar Daily.

Nathan also advised that Malaysians start saving money the moment they start to work and not only to start doing so well into their sunset years.

As another drastic measure, Nathan even suggested another scheme of mandatory savings that can't be withdrawn until retirement age.

"There are some policies in countries such as France and Japan in providing finances for health long-term care,"

"Back here in Malaysia, we can modify the policies and look how the system runs," he said.

According to Nathan, B40 households is one of the most vulnerable groups to falling sick as their income greatly affects their lifestyle and nutrition.

"Covid-19 crisis has happened and is still going on, but we have to look at strategizing for the next 30 years, on what is going to happen to these group of people who withdraws all the money now and do not have any savings for their own health," he said.