Government determined to increase population to 7 mil in 2030.

[Spidey]

heard from those working inside hospital that bed crunch is worst during the holidays period e.g. Dec because a lot of people go holidays and put their elderly into hospital for 24-hour care, although they are not sick. After one week, they are suddenly ok and discharge.

There are people using hospital bed for temporary hotels. It is cheaper than hotel, after all the subsidies. And safer than leaving the elderly alone at home.

[Freenasi]

People who are personally hit or have relatives/friends who are affected by the bed crunch will feel the pain most. Healthcare should have been a major consideration before increasing population number. I hope its a hard lesson and the authority plan carefully before implementing critical politices.

[wsreader]

If the doctors deem the elderly patients' condition serious enough to be admitted to hospital, those working inside hospital should not assume the patients' family members are using hospital bed as temporary hotels.

Healthcare workers have to be careful to draw the correct conclusions when looking at the correlations between elderly patients admissions and holidays.

For example, due to the recent hazy air, many elderly patients may have difficulty with their respiratory system. Please do not correlate increase in hospital admission, if any, with the march school holidays.

[Behappyalways]

2 articles....one which is 4 years ago and the other recently.......although not comparing apple to apple, it seems like occupancy rate is higher now.....

At public hospitals in general, the average bed occupancy rate in January was 82 per cent, falling to 77 per cent last month as patients avoided hospitalisation during the Chinese New Year.

The upcoming Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Jurong General Hospital, now under construction, should ease the bed crunch situation.

http://news.xin.msn.com/zh/singapore/art...id=3934825

Dr Lee Chien Earn, CGH's chief executive officer, told The Straits Times: "Our bed occupancy rate has crossed 100 per cent for certain periods over the past month and some patients have waited more than 24 hours for an inpatient bed."
http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-new...s-20140108

[egghead]

The thing with hospital patients is that unlike hotel guests who can simply change hotels, a hospital patients will have to move his entire medical history to a different hospital; so most patients end up going back to CGH despite it being very full.

[tanjm]

let's not forget that once you increase capacity, you are basically permanently increasing the fixed overhead of our health system. The ideal case is a health system that matches demand exactly - that's a tough act for anyone but armchair experts to follow.

[HitandRun]

The ideal case is a health system that matches demand exactly - that's a tough act for anyone but armchair experts to follow.

So would you care to shed some light to educate plebeians like us? I.e. why the government can miss a fundamental issue. Note: Some studies appear to suggest that the demand for healthcare for those aged 65 and above are several times that of the regular population.

let's not forget that once you increase capacity, you are basically permanently increasing the fixed overhead of our health system.

So what about newater and the desalination plants? Do you mean that their capacity matched our demand exactly without any buffer? So why the government can increase the overhead on water but not healthcare?

[Freenasi]

The thing with hospital patients is that unlike hotel guests who can simply change hotels, a hospital patients will have to move his entire medical history to a different hospital; so most patients end up going back to CGH despite it being very full.

Looking at the rate they catchup on building the infrastructure and hospital buildings, i think the ramp up is permanent. Also it shld be ready for the 7mil by then.

[opmi]

let's not forget that once you increase capacity, you are basically permanently increasing the fixed overhead of our health system. The ideal case is a health system that matches demand exactly - that's a tough act for anyone but armchair experts to follow.

then how come the Punggol LRT was built and more than 15 years when the area was barren land...fenced up and sitting idle for >15 years.

then how come Airport T4 is being built in anticipation of demand when T3 not maxed out yet.

health care is even more important than 2 above for Singaporeans. why cant Govt plonked more money to build ahead of demand?

It is all about political will. Money can come from somewhere. Hey, thats what reserves is for. Not for investing for investing sake.

[Freenasi]

Could be healthcare is a cost, but T4 is profit generating and to welcome FTs lol