The National University Health System (NUHS), on Thursday, Dec 29, 2022, rubbished claims made by Singapore Democratic Party chairman Professor Paul Tambyah that the government is ‘losing millions of dollars from class A hospital wards.’
In a TikTok video posted on 19 Dec, Prof Paul cited an example of the HDB financing model where he alleged that ‘the government is actually providing huge subsidies to wealthy foreigners.’ But these allegations have been refuted by the NUHS, which posted their statement on Facebook on Dec 29.
https://www.tiktok.com/@paultambyah/video/7178761499790314753?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7087128267904206337
“We refer to a recent social media post by Professor Paul Tambyah, in which he shared his personal views (“Why Get rid of ‘A’ Class Wards”). These views do not represent that of the National University Health System and our institutions.”
“The different ward classes within the public hospitals are designed to provide Singaporeans a wider range of options. Foreign patients make up a very small number of patients we see. Contrary to what was shared in the video, we do not make a loss by operating Class A wards.”
NUHS also mentioned that as part of the public healthcare system, their priority is to care for Singaporeans and ensure they have access to good and affordable healthcare.
On Nov 18, 2018, former non-constituency member of parliament Assoc Prof Daniel Goh from the Workers’ Party filed a parliamentary question, asking the health minister how many patients and how much revenue the referral contracts for foreign patients bring in for the public hospitals during the life of this practice; and whether this had compromised Singaporeans’ priority access to public healthcare resources.
The written reply by the Ministry of Health (MOH) is as follows;
1) The priority of the MOH and public healthcare institutions (PHIs) is to serve Singaporeans’ healthcare needs. Our PHIs are not allowed to actively market themselves to foreign patients. MOH has also recently asked PHIs to cease any contracts with service providers to assist foreign patients referred for medical treatment in Singapore. Today, none of our PHIs have contracts with such service providers anymore.
2) There are foreign patients who travel to Singapore to seek medical treatment on their own accord. Between 2013 and 2017, such patients make up about 1.5% of the total inpatient and day surgery attendances at our PHIs. Those whose referrals were supported by contracted service providers constituted about 0.4% of attendances in PHIs that had such contracts. Revenue from such patients made up 0.8% of total revenue in these PHIs.
3) Singaporeans remained the majority of patients treated in PHIs. Foreign patients have not impacted our PHI’s delivery of services and subsidised appointment slots given to Singaporeans. In fact, the median waiting time for new subsidised specialist appointments has improved steadily from 28 days in 2013 to 22 days in the first half of 2018. MOH will continue to work with our PHIs to ensure that meeting Singaporean’s healthcare needs remains our priority.