Daily Lessons from Life 09 January 2014 - Health Ministry working to tackle hospital bed crunch

"Health Ministry working to tackle hospital bed crunch - CNA 09 January 2014

SINGAPORE: In light of the bed crunch situation at hospitals, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is working to ensure that patients in public hospitals are cared for safely and comfortably.

The ministry says an ageing population and a smaller family unit have led to increased demand for health care services.

Senior Minister of State for Health Dr Amy Khor said this on the sidelines of a community event on Thursday.

From December 29 to January 7, the Bed Occupancy Rate (BOR) at public hospitals ranged between 75 per cent and 95 per cent, with Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Changi General Hospital (CGH) having the heavier loads.

Figures by MOH showed that waiting time for a bed ranged between two and nine hours. While there are plans to ramp up bed capacity with new hospitals and nursing homes, it will take time.

Dr Khor said: “Even as we have put this plan (into place)… we are also proactively taking measures to address the bed crunch.

“For instance, we have actively been looking at the available bed capacity in other public hospitals to ease the bed crunch in some of the hospitals, like CGH, KTPH (Khoo Teck Puat Hospital) and Tan Tock Seng Hospital.
"We are working very hard to facilitate timely discharge of patients and therefore allow other patients with more acute needs to be admitted sooner into our hospitals."

Associate Professor Paulin Tay Straughan said her husband was affected by the current bed crunch at hospitals.

On Tuesday morning, she had dropped him off at the Emergency Department of the National University Hospital (NUH) to be treated for a chronic ailment as he was bleeding internally.

She said he waited 12 hours to get a bed.

"I was stunned and shocked because I knew that we had a bed crunch, because this was already highlighted by news reports several years ago, but I didn't realise that this was a sustained phenomenon and it had gotten so serious," said Ms Straughan."

Another 'challenge' that escaped planning?

Lessons for me are:

1. it is never easy to plan. This is especially so if you want to get it 20/20 or 100% right! YET, when things go awry, it is the last thing we want to tell people that it is VERY HARD to predict and plan! Or that it takes time to put the plan in place! The question in everyone's mind will be: when was the plan established? Just recently hence the catching up?;

2. it is interesting, or just as well, that the Asso Prof Straughan's husband was affected by this 'phenomenon' as she was a Nominated Member of Parliament in the past. Otherwise, this 'problem or challenge' may never get the due attention it deserved! The key information she revealed is that the bed shortage issue had been widely reported in the past and nobody expected it to come to such a stage where Changi General Hospital (CGH) actually have to set up a tent to house patients! It is small wonder that people asked: what happened to the planning?;

3. now that it has come to this unsatisfactory stage, I figured the most productive thing to do is to find out what and where went wrong? Could it be the 'I really don't want to overbuild capacity DESPITE the fact that I know the population is aging rapidly, the government is accelerating input of new migrants, etc' mindset in the leadership that resulted in this 'demand far exceeded supply' situation? It follows that the skeptics will demand: 'if we are paying world class compensation to our leaders, how can we accept that 'oversight' as just oversight?'

Another challenge that MAY jostle the government to THINK harder on the controversial and emotionally charged Population White Paper target or projection of 6.9m people?