WP Nathaniel Koh empathizes elderly residents requesting ramp for multi-step HDB entrances on ground floor

Along with his regular pairing Fadli Fawzi, the Workers’ Party newly elected CEC member Nathaniel Koh is back on the ground visiting residents at Lengkong Tiga in Kembangan over the weekend. 

The HDB in this estate was built in the late 80s and there are multi-steps entrances on the ground floor. As Koh mentioned on his Facebook, with a growing aging population, these multi-step entrances have become an obstacle to residents with mobility issues.

“A resident I met shared her everyday struggles as the primary caregiver for her 88-year-old mother. Her unit has a 5-step entrance and she has to carefully guide her mother up and down the steps whenever she brings her to the eldercare centre and back home. That includes trips to and from the polyclinic, hospital, and other ad hoc trips out of the house,” said Koh.

The resident shared with the WP deputy treasurer that she had previously approached the HDB for help building a ramp but the matter has yet to be resolved. “I emphatised with her situation and encouraged her to approach HDB again, or to visit her local MP to assist in appealing to HDB,” added Koh.

Koh shared that in April 2021, Minister for National Development Desmond Lee had a written parliamentary response to a question raised by Non-Constituency Member of Parliament from Progress Singapore Party Hazel Poa on wheelchair-bound HDB residents living on floors without lift access.

“With an ageing society and an ever-growing number of senior citizens, more and more HDB residents may face mobility issues and even require the use of wheelchairs. We recognise the increasing need for barrier free accessibility in our HDB estates, which is why we have over the years set out a range of programmes, in full anticipation that all residents may one day have mobility needs,” said Minister Lee in the written reply.

“HDB does not track the number of wheelchair-bound residents in our flats. But I can assure the Member that HDB will attend to every case of a resident requesting help with mobility issues, and do its best to assist such residents. Over the past year, HDB received 27 cases of feedback on wheelchair accessibility within HDB blocks and estates.”

In July 2021, Minister Lee responded to a question by Member of Parliament Tan Wu Meng on the current number and proportion of HDB flats that have multi-step main entrances, broken down by decades of construction.

“HDB flats are designed with a variety of configurations. Some of the older flats built in the 1970s and 1980s were designed with multi-step entrances so that their windows could be raised above the eye level of passers-by for improved privacy. About 170,000 HDB flats, or 17% of all HDB flats, were designed with multi-step entrances,” shared Minister Lee.

The breakdown of HDB flats with multi-step entrances based on the year of completion is shown in the table below.