ARE Singaporeans Living LONGER?
You referring to Delayed retirement plans and likelihood of
surviving right?
well, I have some news for you from CNA:
MOH to set up 2 specialty centres for cancer, heart disease
By Julia Ng, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 26 August 2007 1903
hrs
MOH to set up 2
specialty centres for cancer, heart disease
SINGAPORE: The Health Ministry (MOH) is setting up two new
specialty centres for cancer and heart disease at the National
University Hospital (NUH) over the next 12 months to meet rising
demand.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said this at the Healthcare Charity
Run, aimed at raising money for the President's Challenge charity
campaign.
In
Singapore, cancer and heart disease are the two top killers and
cancer alone claims 4,000 lives every year.
By 2015, it is projected that new cancer cases will jump from the
present 9,000 a year to 13,000, while the number of heart patients
will grow from 200,000 to 320,000.
Mr Khaw said Singapore must ramp up its
capacity and capabilities to meet this demand as the population
expands and ages.
Last year, the National Cancer Centre Singapore (NCCS) attended to
125,000 outpatients, while the National Heart Centre (NHC) handled
almost 10,000 in-patient episodes (one patient could be
hospitalised a few times and each hospitalisation is one
'episode').
"Seriously they are 'choc-a-bloc' now. If you visit them, you'll
see every nook and corner fully used up. As growth is not sudden,
we just have to build it up slowly. So in the case of NUH, they
already have some service going on for years, that's why the choice
of NUH is quite clear," said the health minister.
Last year, NUH's Cancer Institute saw 3,600 new patients a 20
percent increase from 2005.
Its cardiac centre now handles 10,000 new heart patients every
year.
Mr Khaw said with more specialty centres at the national level,
this will make room for doctors to sub-specialise and develop new
niche areas. In the long run, this could mean better care for
patients.
He said: "When I look at specialty development over the last 15
years, my preference, going forward, is to spawn off a second
centre for those centres with large critical mass."
The strategy is for the national centres to pilot new projects and
once the treatment procedures become routine and standard, they
could move downstream to other general hospitals.
This way, patients pay less and have better access to specialised
care. It also frees up resources at the national centres so that
they could focus on developing higher-end capabilities and treating
patients with greater complications.
Mr Khaw also challenged other specialty centres to aim
higher.
He said: "At the same time, I'm asking the existing specialty
centres to aim higher. I think after 15 years of specialty
development, my assessment is that they've done very well. I think
we should begin to set our sights higher. Centres like SNEC
(Singapore National Eye Centre) ophthalmology ought to look at
their role as the referral centres of the region.
"Heart centres, likewise, ought to aim higher as well. There're a
number of developments that we're now studying. We'll be doing our
consultation with senior doctors to see which other national
specialty centre to have. This is to prepare ourselves for the
future. You can't just build a centre and have it running within a
few years. It'll take 10, 15 yrs."
Until then, MOH will continue to invest in the national centres to
help them grow further.
In fact, the NHC is slated to be re-built on its current Outram
site, which is fast becoming inadequate for its current level of
patient care, education and research.
Welcoming the move to set up a new Heart Centre, the NHC, which has
50 percent of the market share, said this not only provides more
choices for patients, the new centre will help to manage and
improve waiting times.
On its part, NHC said it would continue to provide cost-effective
and high standards of cardiac care to Singaporeans.
The NCCS also welcomes the setting up of another specialist team at
NUH.
The Centre said its doctors have long enjoyed good partnership on
various research collaborations with the NUH team.
Having a new cancer team at NUH will benefit patients and help NCCS
enhance its expertise, to develop into a strong regional centre for
cancer treatment and at the same time, allow it to expand its
international collaborations with reputable medical and research
institutions.
Apart from capital investments, MOH is also looking at increasing
the list of recognised foreign medical degrees to boost the pool of
doctors here.
Chua Song Khim, CEO of National University Hospital, said: "We're
willing to find space for infrastructure and stuff. But it's the
human resource we need. We need doctors, nurses, allied health
staff and support services to make sure we can support the
projected increase."
Last year, Singapore trained 200 local doctors and attracted
another 200 foreign ones, but Mr Khaw would like the number for
both groups increased to about 300.
- CNA/so
