Why was NUH so eager to discharge me?

Wednesday, 24 August 2011

Singapore Democrats

Dear SDP,

I am writing to express my deepest disappointment and disgust towards the treatment of patients at the National University Hospital (NUH).

As a recent patient warded at NUH Ward 51 and transferred to NUH Rehab Ward 1 at the West Point Hospital, I have firsthand experience of how local B2/C class Singapore patients are being treated.

Barely being in Ward 1 for few days, I was pressured to leave the premises. Their reason? My broken knee was not serious enough a problem for me to remain in the rehab centre and I was deemed fit enough to be discharged. I am a divorcee with 3 children. I have no maid or relatives to help take care of me in the day.

Or I can pay for my stay in a community hospital as they have a 2-week stay policy and Ward 1 is only a transit lounge. Please note that there are ample hospital beds available and the Ward 1 is not overworked unlike NUH Ward 51.

If it is a rehab centre, am I not supposed to remain here till my knee has healed and has full mobility?

But what appalls me is that foreign patients are not pressured to leave the ward with the same gusto as Singapore patients. Does it mean that full-fee bearing foreign patients are more welcome into government hospitals than Singaporeans who pay a subsidised fee? Is this hospital not built by Singaporean money? Is the ‘bottom-line’ more important than the care, comfort, compassion and empathy?

When I raised these questions to the hospital staff, they merely side-stepped the questions and gave me lots of suggestions of how I could be discharged and fend for myself with insensitive comments.

Am I having free stay at the hospital or the profits do not substantiate my stay? Isn’t hospital supposed to see to the well being of patients? If I am paying for unsubsidized ward, would NUH be so eager to throw me out?

Can I ask our former Health Minister, Khaw Boon Wan if he was pressured to leave so "as to discourage unnecessary hospitalisation" and he paid only $8 for a bypass? They suggested that I move up to the private West Point Hospital (I witnessed one of the patients move there because she had no choice.)

If this is a First World Country with First World medical facility and a Singaporean First policy, then why are there double standards in a government hospital? Has government hospital lost their moral compass and resort to being experts in money-making rather than institutions which provide medical services to the people? Have Singaporeans become economic figures for GDP growth? Are we not as human as the ministers, the elites and the foreigners?

I would appreciate a reply by our Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong who assured us of a Singaporean First policy in his National Day speech and an investigation/reply from our Minister for Health Gan Kim Yong with regards to this matter. Thank you.

Yours sincerely,
Siew Tin

P.S. I’ve discharged myself as I couldn’t take the pressure any longer. I have never felt more sad, disgusted and humiliated as I am subjected to their harassment and abuse on almost daily basis. I am also not the only Singaporean being driven out. Singaporeans must be aware of how NUH treats their patients.

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Comments (4)

Wed 24 Aug 2011 11:17 PM | Ken

yup, 12 yrs ago my mum also had bad experiences at NUH. Due to the doctor's negligence she had to suffered for many days. No apologies were offered. From then on, I have blacklisted NUH.

Wed 24 Aug 2011 11:36 PM | less mortal

Just don't pay your bill!!!

Tue 30 Aug 2011 6:09 PM | Jillan - Lousy Singapore Medical Services

The worst performing ministry is the Health Ministry under minister Khaw Boon Wan.

Waiting time of 2 to 3 hrs at the Polyclinics is ridiculous and unacceptable. And after seeing
the doctor, you need another 1 to 2 hours waiting for your medication so the total wasted time is close to 4 to 5 hours.

Don't forget that when parents are sick they need at least one of their working children to accompany
them and this is an additional wastage in productivity impacting our GDP.

Under the 10 year tenure of Health minister Khaw he has drastically reduced medical expenses to impact
the well being of Singaporeans with many dying as a consequence.

He is just acting as an accountant curtailing cost without knowing the damaged he has done. An
accountant salary is all he deserved instead of the multi million salary just to put up signages all over

waiting areas saying your waiting time is 2 to 3 hours before you can see a doctor and another 1 to 2
hours for your medication which is a no brainer.

The wasted time in manpower is more than enough to build ten large hospitals and provide medical
education for thousands of doctors. The number of medical students for universities has been so
drastically cut creating a shortage that will take years to catch up.

When public outcry surfaces on the underperforming health system, he has no choice but to bring in
hordes of medical doctors from third world countries as a stop gap measure and this will only lower our
medical standards and compromise public health. Hopefully such doctors who often misdiagnosed illness
and are well below the standards of Singapore trained doctors will be send back to their own countries
when their contract expires and not taking up space for our own Singapore soon to graduate doctors.

The practice of putting patients with potential heart conditions on powerful vaso dilators for months
while awaiting their turn to have a heart scan or angiogram should be stopped as this practice has
caused thousands to die or suffer a stroke while waiting. Thousands of Singaporeans die each year of a blockage in their arteries because they were not given a scan (non invasive) or an angiogram (invasive) to detect the blockage to clear it on the spot. Instead a normal ECG is done and they are told nothing is wrong with them and send home to die a sudden death from a heart attack.

The ECG or a even a stress test or blood test will not detect a blockage, only a scan or angiogram will.

The risk of dying from an angiogram is only 0.05 per cent when perform by inexperience doctors which is marginal compare to the thousands who could have been saved if the blockage can be cleared in time instead of being send home to wait months for their scan.

If the government hospitals are so lacking and fully stretched they should consider sending patients with
potential heart blockages to private hospitals or labs for scanning with the government paying the
difference. This should continue until the government hospitals catches up with facilities and more
doctors for such heart conditions.

The only resources S'pore has is it's people and therefore we should spare no expense in the pursuit of health and education especially so when 70 per cent who die of heart attack are between the productive ages of 30 to 50 and seldom senior citizens.

Hopefully the new health minister will not do further damage by following on the heels of minister

Khaw to even further reduced the health budget. The opposition parties got it right when they proposed
a budget of 10 billion instead of our miserly 3 billion at the expense of our citizen's well being.

The old mantra of ministries milking its citizens as much as they can no longer is the right solution. In
this modern age it is how efficient they perform for the good of its people and country that matters and
not total wealth accumulation. Lets now judge how efficient our new health minister is by benchmarking
if he can reduce the waiting time to no more than 2 hours and clear the backlog of heart cases.

And what is the point of milking it citizens and creating billions more of reserves when a sizable portion of that is lost through overseas investment which could have been better utilized for better health system, education system and more support for growing local business and companies (which does not
relocate to cheaper countries as the multi-nationals do) to create more jobs and a better transportation
system.

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