KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 5 — Residential aged care operators in Malaysia are struggling to upgrade their facilities to meet safety and quality standards amid financial constraints, pressure to keep fees affordable and costly regulatory requirements, an industry group says.
Association for Residential Aged Care Operators of Malaysia (AgeCope) president Delren Terrence Douglas said operators faced a difficult balancing act between providing better facilities and keeping residential care affordable for families.
“Everyone who comes to the care centre, they will ask, can you lower the fee? Is RM1,000 okay, is RM1,500 okay? Most Malaysians cannot afford monthly fees of RM3,500, RM4,000, or RM5,000. But that’s the standard they want,” Delren said at the National Long-Term Care Financing Dialogue 2026 on October 21, 2026.
He said many operators also rented the properties used as care homes, making it difficult to justify expensive infrastructure investments.
Some local councils, for example, require care centres to install costly sprinkler systems instead of accepting fire extinguishers, Delren said. He questioned why requirements differed between local authorities, with some accepting fire extinguishers in certain residential premises while others demanded sprinkler systems even for ground-floor facilities.
“Who is going to invest RM120,000 for a fire sprinkler system in a house that you are renting?” he asked.
However, upgrading facilities alone would not guarantee better care, Delren said, as service quality also depended on having sufficient trained personnel.
“You can have the best nursing home, but if your care is the worst, it’s also useless. I can have the most beautiful, air-conditioned care centre, but I lack staff. Then what’s the purpose?” he said.
Aged Care Operators Blame Local Council Rules For Licensing Bottlenecks
Beyond the cost of upgrading facilities, inconsistent requirements imposed by local authorities are creating further obstacles for operators seeking to register their care centres, Delren said.
Although the federal government has guidelines for elderly care centres, local councils impose additional requirements that vary between jurisdictions, sometimes overriding federal guidelines.
This leaves operators caught between the Department of Social Welfare (JKM), which oversees the registration of care centres, and local authorities, whose supporting approvals are required before registration certificates can be issued.
“The JKM officers can tell you your facility is the best, the nicest they have seen, but they can’t issue your licence without supporting approvals from the local council,” he said.
Delren cited Sungai Petani, Kedah, as an example of the licensing gap. In 2012, the town had only eight aged care centres, almost all of which were licensed. Today, there are 51 centres, but only 12 are licensed, he said.
“And it’s not that these operators don’t want to get their licences. They want to, but they’re all stuck – either with the town council, the architect, or the fire department,” Delren said.
In June, CodeBlue reported that more than 1,000 aged care homes were believed to be operating without licences, with only 441 registered under the Care Centres Act 1993, according to Kendana (Malaysia Caregivers Association) chairman Rashidi Yahaya.
Opposition from neighbouring residents was another obstacle. Delren said some local authorities rejected applications to establish care centres in residential neighbourhoods simply because neighbours objected, without requiring them to provide reasons.
He recounted cases in which operators had successfully challenged such objections in court but eventually chose to relocate because of legal costs and strained relationships with their neighbours.
“This is one of our biggest hindrances, actually,” Delren said.
Aged Care Sector Struggles To Recruit, Train And Retain Caregivers
Delren also questioned whether Malaysia had sufficient training capacity and a sustainable workforce to meet the government’s target of training 50,000 skilled caregivers by 2030.
He said the sector was already struggling to recruit and retain workers, raising questions about where the additional caregivers would come from and whether training institutions could produce them in sufficient numbers.
Meeting the target would require training about 12,000 caregivers annually over the next three to four years, he said.
“You can give a good figure, 50,000. You say you want that by 2030, but do we have enough training centres to churn out 12,000 caregivers a year?” he said.
Delren also highlighted difficulties in establishing a centralised registration system for caregivers.
He said Kendana had approached AgeCope to help compile information on caregivers working in residential care centres, but operators were reluctant to disclose their staff lists to a third party.
“Unless the government says otherwise, when I ask individual care centres, ‘Please give me the list of your caregivers’, nobody’s going to give it,” he said.
A government directive requiring care centres to register their caregivers could help overcome this reluctance and provide a clearer picture of the workforce, Delren suggested.
Ageing Society Needs Younger Generations To Embrace Caregiving
Beyond formal training, Delren said Malaysia could cultivate interest in caregiving from a young age by giving students opportunities to interact with and care for older people.
He cited an example from Taiwan, where a school had incorporated an elderly daycare centre into one of its buildings, allowing older people to spend time there during the day.
Students volunteered to assist the elderly as part of their co-curricular activities and received points for participating, exposing younger generations to caregiving while encouraging interaction between children and older people, he said.
Students who subsequently pursued formal caregiver training could also receive exemptions for certain components based on their previous co-curricular experience.
“Maybe we can start from there, ingrained in our youth,” Delren said.
Such initiatives could help change societal attitudes towards ageing and caregiving, while encouraging more young people to consider working in the sector.
