Today, maid-booking platform Maideasy has some news that is simultaneously expected, but a little bit out of their usual turf.
Maideasy, as the name implies, is a platform that makes it easier for homeowners to find someone to clean their homes. Instead of hunting far and wide on forums and word-of-mouth, Maideasy gives users the relatively easier option to just scroll through an app or website to get similar results.
Cleaners get a platform for discovery, users get people to clean their houses (or pack up their things to move out) and the platform gets money. It’s a win-win for everyone.
But in a newsletter today, Maideasy introduced Maideasy Care, which extends the Maideasy reach into the field of elderly care. For RM30 an hour, Maideasy Care will send a professional caregiver to your home to watch after any elderly family members. This includes:
This addition comes after receiving some requests from users, according to co-founder Meriza.
Of course most clients that send them inquiries are looking for cleaners, but every so often, they’ll get other requests. “They sometimes ask if we could take care of their parents back home. But our cleaning crew, they’re only trained to do cleaning. So because of this, we did not dare to offer this service before. But we did see the market going there, and that’s why we decided to open Maideasy Care—only after getting professional caregivers on board.”
Getting Caretakers On Maideasy
According to Meriza, despite just launching this week itself, they already have nurses on standby. So this means that users can choose between using Maideasy Care to hire individuals for general care or get more specialised, medical-related care from these nurses.
Meriza describes general care as, “Taking care of them, doing simple chores like cooking, cleaning rooms, bathing them, clothing them, etc. But if it’s a registered nurse, then they will be more experienced in giving them (the elderly) medication, so we do have that as well. But all this is a very custom request because medication is very personalised.”
The team does all of the interviews and vetting of the nurses and caregivers in-house before bringing them on board:
- For nurses: Besides being qualified, they need a minimum amount of experience (“Let’s say two or so years at minimum,” said Meriza).
- For caregivers: They need on-field experience working either in taking care of the elderly, or in an old folks homes.
The team did say that they are open to collaborations with parties such as hospitals that would like to list their caregivers on the platform.
Beyond this expansion, we also asked since Maideasy has now moved into the caregiving sector, is there any possibility for a future Maideasy Babysitting? It seems to be a natural transition.
Meriza said, “We have thought about it, and we have inquiries about childcare. But it’s a totally different scope for us to do and there are guidelines that we have to follow. For now, I can say that we’re not sure if we want to do childcare or not. But we’re open to the idea.”
At RM30 per hour, with a minimum 4 hours per shift, we think it’s not an unreasonable rate. At the moment, less than a month left to the much awaited Raya Aidilfitri, there’s a 50% surcharge for holidays, and if the care is for more than two family members.
It looks like home care providers like HomeGP.asia are looking at a bit of competition from Maideasy here. But in this case, it does make some sense. In a typical maid-employer arrangement, employers with aging parents usually place some of the caretaking duties into the hands of the in-house maids. So this seems like a very natural transition for the platform to make to expand their offerings.
Any Maideasy Care bookings can be made here.
Feature Image Credit: Maideasy
