SINGAPORE: The Ministry of Health has added about 500 beds and is on track to have 800 more by the end of the year to relieve the shortage of beds, says Health Minister Ong Ye Kung.
The new beds include 30 at acute hospitals, 90 at community hospitals, 20 at Mobile Inpatient Care @ Home and over 350 at nursing homes.
The minister said this at the opening of the Tan Tock Seng Hospital-Integrated Care Hub (TTSH-ICH) on Monday (Oct 2).
He had earlier announced plans to add 1,300 beds this year. That is equivalent to the capacity of one-and-a-half regional hospitals, he said on Monday.
In a Facebook post, he wrote:
“We officially opened the Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) Integrated Care Hub’s (ICH) rehabilitation and recovery wards this morning.
This is the newest addition to the 17-hectare Health City Novena development. When fully completed by the end of this year, ICH will have 608 beds, comprising rehabilitation and palliative care beds.
What is special is that TTSH has now strongly featured rehabilitation for step-down hospital care. Rehabilitation is usually done for non-hospitalised patients.
With TTSH and Ren Ci Community Hospital nearby, these healthcare facilities will provide patients will a seamless transition from acute care to step down care to rehabilitation and then full recovery.”
The 17-hectare Health City Novena, located between Moulmein Road and Irrawaddy Road in central Singapore, includes Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Dover Park Hospice, Ren Ci Hospital, the National Skin Centre, the National Neuroscience Institute and the Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine.
Step-down care and rehabilitation facilities relieve the pressure on acute hospitals such as Tan Tock Seng Hospital and Singapore General Hospital, which focus more on treatment and surgery.
Mr Ong said the public healthcare system had been under stress since the COVID-19 pandemic due to delays in infrastructure development and an increase in the number of patients.
In April, patients were waiting longer to get hospital beds. The median waiting time increased from five hours to 7.2 hours.
Mr Ong mentioned other major projects to expand hospital capacity, such as the upcoming Eastern Integrated Health Campus next to Bedok North MRT and the redevelopment of Alexandra Hospital.
“The Woodlands Health Campus, which will provide significant relief for Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, will start to open in phases from the end of this year,” he added.
Besides increasing the number of hospital beds, the authorities are also trying to provide hospital-type care at home.
More patients will be able to receive hospital-type care at home with the expansion of a “virtual” ward pilot programme to more public healthcare institutions, said the Ministry of Health in August.
The Mobile Inpatient Care-at-Home (MIC@Home) pilot programme, begun in April 2022, allows patients to receive medical care in their own homes instead of a hospital ward.
Selected patients with conditions classified under general medicine, like skin infections, can be admitted to a “virtual” ward, where they receive treatment from healthcare professionals via teleconsultations and home visits until they are fit for discharge.
MIC@Home was first implemented at hospitals under the National University Health System, Singapore General Hospital and Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and then expanded to four more hospitals: Changi General Hospital (CGH), KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), Sengkang General Hospital (SKH) and Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).
As of June 2023, around 1,000 patients have benefited from the programme, resulting in an estimated savings of 7,000 bed days, reported Channel News Asia.
Singapore’s rapidly ageing population needs more health care.
The working age population of citizens aged 20 to 64 declined from 64.9 per cent in 2013 to 61 in 2023, while the proportion of citizens aged 65 and above increased from 11.7 per cent in 2013 to 19.1 per cent during the same period.