It is interesting to observe the pre-election activities and exchanges that are taking place now. Are there any healthcare issues that might concern the small minority of the electorate that are interested/directly involved? Or the way the healthcare system is being (re)tweaked in Singapore? Here are a few possibilities that have been raised - please rebut or add:
- Insufficient hospital beds - being belatedly addressed. "Slightly under-supply" being better than oversupply.
- Medical tourism and its impact on healthcare costs and resources (and also the possibility of importing more infectious agents into our hospitals).
- Cost of healthcare (Mr Leong Sze Hian is right on the money here). Means testing does not help to bring this down.
- Shoving through the new residency training scheme with little consultation or discussion.
- Private primary healthcare - more GPs becoming aesthetic doctors rather than dealing with an expanded scope of medical work like chronic diseases, etc.
- Class system - do patients suffer only from reduced "hotel services"? Note that Prof Roy Chan carefully did not state whether subsidized patients with non-urgent skin conditions had to wait longer for an appointment compared to private patients.
On the other hand, there are more hospitals being built now (the next one will be up in 2014), the country still spends less than 5% of its GDP on healthcare, and the healthcare system ranked No. 6 in the world when last surveyed in 2000 by the WHO. And patients are seemingly more satisfied with the public healthcare system by the year.
2 comments:
I am always very wary when politicians promise voters that they will improve the healthcare system.
It's always easy to tell the people what they want to hear: cheaper consultation, cheaper medicines, beds when you want one, hospital/polyclinic near your flat (but not so near it lowers your property price...).
What is not said out loud, however, is: at what cost?
The government doesn't really pay for any of these things, you see - tax payers do. And what happens when you have a system where healthcare is heavily subsidised, if that people abdicate their own responsibility on their own health, or otherwise abuse the system. I used to think that people will not consume more healthcare than they need, but years of practice have shown me that it is not true. Not only do many people consume healthcare resources that they don't need, many people coumpound the problem by sabotaging their own health with their personal choices.
What I would like to see is a government that recognises that it is not fair to fund a subsidised healthcare system where there is no accountability on the part of the patient. What I would like to see is more personal responsiblity when it comes to one's health, and less turning to tax money as the solution to all difficulties one faces in face.
But of course, one will never get elected telling people that, will one?
I agree.
Being in a primary healthcare setting I see some patients dropping in for the slightest discomfort because they received MCYS subsidy and want to try to squeeze the most out of it.
Then there are others who storm in, insisting shorter appointments and more frequent reviews, on the basis that they are tax payers.
What about those of us who pay taxes to fund these who try to capitalise on the subsidised healthcare system?
On a radical point, I think healthcare cost needs to go up instead.
Singaporeans need to understand that many of then with chronic diseases are due to their messed up thinking that they will fall sick beyond their control and it is the duty of the doctors and government to take care of them.
Do these pricks really think that their obesity and inappropriate dieting/smoking lifestyle have nothing to do with their high blood pressure and high cholesterol?
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