Dateline: Lion City: Social workers found a 70-year-old woman suffering from dementia, lying on a urine-stained mattress near the toilet in her home. She had not bathed for days.

The older woman's daughter had left her alone at home because she was incontinent and refused to use diapers. 

She needed medical attention, but before the social workers could take her to hospital, they had to get her daughter's approval. 

The law allows the authorities to intercede in such cases only if the victim or a third party has applied for a protection order under the Women's Charter; the police can be called in and the Penal Code invoked only in cases of serious injury or financial abuse. 

This does not offer enough protection for the elderly, say social workers and lawyers. 

They recommend laws that will allow them to take abused old folk from unwilling family members. 

The proposal may find its way into the Golden Life Workgroup's report on preventing elderly abuse. 

To be presented to the Government later this year, it is being drafted by 26 agencies, including government organisations, hospitals, family service centres and charity groups. 

Lawyers say legislation would be particularly useful for protecting those who have lost their mental faculties. 

According to the Trans Centre family service centre, about half of the 30 or so cases of abused old people it saw between last September and March this year involved those with a mental illness. 

Said its director, Chow Choy Yin: "Without the necessary laws, it's hard to intervene if the elderly and family members are not willing to seek help." 
It is even harder when the old folk do not want to report abuses, said lawyer Ellen Lee, the chairman of the Law Society's Family Law Practice Committee. 

Then, all the social workers can do is stand and watch, she added.