The temptation to sit day after day, year after year, with the same little clique in the same corner of the same room, doing the same things, thinking the same thoughts, making and listening to the same banal remarks, becomes almost irresistible. In a subtler and civilised way, he will have become institutionalised. In Singapore nowadays, the severely disabled like the quadriplegics, paraplegics and hemiplegics, for example, are unlikely to be able to stay in the hospital environment on a longterm basis. The cost is just too high. The hospitals also would not accept long-term patients.
Few homes are prepared to accept the chronic sick.
A person burdened with a disability has no choice but to go back home to the family, if one has, willing and financially able to take care of him. When the disabled person is also the breadwinner of the family, with wife and children to support, financial aggravation is catastrophic. The government levy on employment of a maid for such cases only exacerbates the situation further. In short, unless one is rich and with many supportive kins, there is absolutely no welfare safety net to buffer the disaster. The picture that I painted is grim, the truth is equally morose.