This letter to the ST Forum prompts me to ask: Which tests do you have in mind, Mr Lim?
Allow use of Medisave for more screening tests
IT IS heartening to learn of Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan's announcement ("Medisave can be used for cancer checks"; March 5). However, this is applicable to only two types of screening tests - colonoscopies, which detect colorectal cancer, and mammograms to screen for breast cancer.
Can Medisave not be extended to other types of cancer screening for a person over 50 years of age? Why restrict it to only these two?
Diagnostic screening is, in most cases, a necessity to determine the health condition of an individual. Why not extend the use of Medisave to cover all cancer screenings as well as all tests to detect heart disease?
To many people, the costs of these tests are a big burden.
Arthur Lim
Now I think the question: Why restrict it to only these two? is a very valid one, and I am pretty sure MOH will very soon come up with a reply on why these two tests were chosen.
What bothered me was how Mr Lim was so keen to promote "the use of Medisave to cover all cancer screenings as well as all tests to detect heart disease" before he has received an answer to his first question.
The truth is not all screening tests are equal, and more importantly, even when a screening test is accurate (yes, I chose to use this term because I am lazy) and we are able "determine the health condition of an individual", it did not necessarily mean that it was cost-effective to screen the population at large, or indeed a specific patient. Unfortunately, if someone was in a position that "the costs of these tests are a big burden" to him or her, an accurate diagnosis may just be the beginning of more financial burden...
But the cost-effectiveness of screening tests are really quite a technical issue that we cannot expect laymen (or even all doctors) to understand - that's not what bothered me about this letter. What bothered me was how a layman can think that a bunch of doctors and statisticians sitting in MOH can be blind to the benefits of "all cancer screenings as well as all tests to detect heart disease", which are so obvious to him.
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4 comments:
Maybe he was just affected by a politician who suggested that everyone with an elevated cholesterol and a family history of heart disease should go for a "screening" cardiac CT scan to save their lives.
I guess if you have the highest paid leadership in the world, you tend to take them at face value when they make statements like that!!!
Such ignorance makes it easy for doctors to "sell" health screening packages.
Just sayin...
doctors who 'sell" health screening packages today are actually Witch Doctors in disguise?
If our healthcare system is for the benefit of Singaporeans, why is there a need for government hospitals like TTSH to be certified by a US based organisation like JCI for the sole purpose of medical tourists ? And of all things, from a country ranked 37 by WHO for healthcare while we are ranked 6th ??? While we are celebrating the fact that our mathematics books are used by the US, why do we still feel a need to follow their FAILED healthcare system ?? Why are we certifying for medical tourists when there are insufficient beds in TTSH for locals ??? Why in the name of commonsense a wheelchair is classified as a medical device to be registered with the HSA when it is really nothing more than a reconstructed bicycle ?? I think while we celebrate our health care, the routes taken by the authorities can only increase the cost and could well destroy the ideal of "affordable" healthcare. We are becoming a nation of bureaucrats adding little to the final product but increasing the cost. Doctors who should know better but dictated by ignorant pencil pushers telling them they cannot have it because of incomplete paper work ??
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