Dear Mr. Tan,
I agreed with Ministry of Health that there is no Medi-crisis at the macro level. My family members have been treated in public hospitals, and the charges are affordable.
But we face a financial crisis at the micro level, in meeting the post-hospital expenses covering the following:
Taxi Fare/Ambulance
Consultation Fee
Laboratory Test Scan
Meal at Hospital Foodcourt
Medicine
Food suppliment
The total cost for each medical appointment is more than $200 (not counting loss of productivity). This has to be multiplied by the number of visits over the years for two elderly persons.
Each retiree gets only $297 a month from the CPF savings.
The devil is in the details and it can be a killer. Sometimes policy makers don't know or feel it because they are not affected by it or experience it themselves. How to when the income gap between them and common folk is so large?
ReplyDeleteAlso nowadays I noticed that when a patient gets to see his doctor is now left to the administrative staff. After the first initial visit, which is the most expensive as specialist fees are included, the patient is then rostered according to availabilty since he is subsidised, and the date can sometimes be six months down the road. Meanwhile, after all the xrays are done and paid for, he is advised to seek private medical care if he wants to be treated faster. The xrays are not released thus if he visits a private doctor or dentist, repeated xrays will have to be done. This is unacceptable and clearly not in the patient's interest. So the patient either have to pay full fees or go to a private doctor or dentist and have the whole process repeated. Meanwhile, first class treatment is given to foreign patients who have no problems paying full fees for the fastest treatment. Thank You Singapore!!! We have given you full protection through our national service, now that we are old and sick, we have the choice to pay full fees or no fast treatment. We were not paid full fees for our national service either, should we have asked for deferred provision of national service when full fees are not paid to us?
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