Oh and there is more about Asthma - HealthCare...
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She'd rather collapse and go to
hospital than spend $1,000 to control asthma
May 11, 2006
SHE'S been in and out of hospital 18 times.
Madam Surayah nearly died 6 of the 18 times she was in hospital.
--DAVID TAN
Each time for acute asthma attacks.
Madam Surayah Abdul Manap, 45, is the National University
Hospital's (NUH) 'star' patient, much to her doctors'
exasperation.
She would rather collapse and be hospitalised, instead of taking
medication to prevent acute asthma attacks.
The reason: If she is hospitalised, she can use Medisave to pay the
bills.
Six of those times, she became comatose and needed resuscitation
and breathing support in a hospital emergency department.
From 1997 to February 2004, whenever she suffered from such acute
attacks, she needed to be hospitalised. Each stay averaged four
days.
She knew she needed to take medication every day to keep her asthma
at bay, and also more medication to keep the attacks mild when they
happened.
'But that type of medication is very expensive,' she told The New
Paper.
Cost was the major consideration and impediment in her taking the
medication.
The preventive medication would have cost her more than $1,000 a
year.
She chose to become sick and be hospitalised when the need arose,
even when each hospitalisation cost her and her husband, a tyre
technician, an average of $1,000.
'For hospitalisation, we can claim from Medisave,' explained the
housewife and mother of five.
'For medication, where can we come up with the money?' In 2004, she
became one of nearly 10,000 high-risk asthma patients put on the
Singapore National Asthma Programme (Snap).
From having to pay over $1,000 a year, Madam Surayah needed to pay
only $150 every three months for the preventive medication, which
works out to be about 50 per cent less.
She has not suffered a single acute attack since.
