Originally posted by oxford mushroom:
There seems to be selective contradictions in your
argument.
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No..far from it. First, it was you who spoke of hospitals in
Bangkok and Malaysia in the same breath:
"Bangkok International Hospital and
Columbia Asia Medical Centres are recognised as Private Hospitals
operating respectively in Thailand and Malaysia; and the quality of
services in these respective hospitals are available at much lower
costs then in Singapore."
Of the two, Bangkok International Hospital is closest in the range
of services and standard to SGH/NUH although if you look at the
accreditation, their labs are not accredited by the same
international agency as those in Singapore. Columbia Asia Medical
Centre is not even JCI accredited as far as I know and the range of
services they offer is much more narrow.
As mentioned, you are very
selective in your extract of my postings, and interpret the issues
in an intentionally narrow manner that distort the entire picture
of health care to benefit your own design in this debate.
Yes, Bangkok International Hospital and Columbia Asia Medical
Centres were mentioned together for the 'QUALITY OF
SERVICES ..... at much lower costs then in Singapore'
.
The 'quality of services' are as stated in my
postings as - " Standard medicine and medical practises - dealing
with orthopaedic, paediatrics, pregnancies, heart surgeries, and
other general medical practices - will cost far cheaper in Malaysia
and Thailand when compared to the same being conducted in Singapore
or Hongkong." - which you seem to ignore, preferring to limit your
position with lab tests that are accredited by
some acronymed body.
Are you not selectively narrowing your argument in a direction that
is totally irrelevant to the general health care for Thais,
Malaysians and Singaporeans ?
Should accredited lab tests be the single superior
criteria over all other medical and surgical services offered by
hospitals ?
Are hospital not built to cure all kinds of diseases
suffered ?
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Obviously not....that's the point. If you want to provide cutting
edge medicine, your costs will go up.
Are hospital built to provide high
standards of AFFORDABLE Health Care, or for the 'national vanity'
in the glory of providing 'CUTTING EDGE MEDICINE' ?
Did Singaporeans clamor for 'cutting edge medicine' or are
Singaporeans calling for lower health costs with greater
transparency ?
the final measure of effiency and effectiveness is the
rate of cure for each dollar or baht spent to cure the patients;
and of course the rate of cure will also count.
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Yes, and as research in medical technology has moved so quickly, we
can now offer better cure rates and survival than before. Hundreds
of women are treated in our hospitals for breast cancer each year.
With a form of early breast cancer, you can now enjoy a 80%
survival compared to 60% with a new drug. We have the technology to
offer the new treatment but it is also very expensive.
Are you willing to accept a lower cure rate for a lower price? More
importantly, will Singaporeans accept it?
The Pharmaceutical Companies are
pushing out new drugs at high prices in the early stage to recover
their R & D costs, much like Car Manufacturers charging
atrocious prices for exotic cars that depreciate in value after the
innovative designs and technologies become available by other
marques.
Costs of Medicines need not be high through careful and prudent
management and joint co-operation between Government,
Pharmaceutical Industries, Health Care Providers and
Insurers.
It is a matter for those responsible in the Health Care business to
take the initiative towards getting new effectively tested cures at
the lowest possible prices to the sick and needy.
Singapore cost of land is artificially priced to exact
the maximum profits from developers, and ultimately from the
Singaporean minions who will pay for it.
I agree that the high land costs is a major problem and pushes up
costs for everyone, from factories to hospitals. But if property
prices are to drop precipitously now, Singaporeans will be up in
arms as well. Many have their life savings tied up in property. But
that is a side issue now: it's far too late for that and we cannot
solve our healthcare cost problem that way.
When our costs become too high for our factories that used to
produce disk drive competitively, they move to higher value
products like computer chips. We are starting to do that with
healthcare, with outsourcing of radiology services to concentrate
on higher value services like therapeutic radiology. However, the
patients are still with us. Can you outsource our patients to
hospitals in JB for their hip replacement operations so that our
hospitals can focus on high value services? Will Singaporeans
accept that?
Calm yourself from exaggeration,
and you will perhaps allow yourself to see through the fog that is
purposefully created.
Land costs have been arbitrarily set by the Government aka the
Ruling Political Party - similar to the Singaporean wages being
artificially pushed up to serve some misguided political agenda;
which required Singapore wages to be reduced and a new employment
contract to be drawn up.
Must property prices be brought down to the exageratedly
precipitous level ?
The current property prices have been brought to this disruptively
high levels as a result of GREED to grab as much as the market can
bear.
Climbing up the price stack in double quick step is easy over the
last FORTY YEARS, but climbing down is more difficult when the
ground is no longer stable
What is the use of having all of one's life savings in a fixxed
asset that is a mere piece of real estate, AND without any balance
cash to survive one's retired life ?
With high medical costs to boot - besides the high cost of living -
most Singaporeans will need to downgrade so as to get cash into
their account.
If you insist in dabbling in high tech medicines instead of
affordable medicine needed by Singaporeans, so be it.
We will adopt the same guiding principle of Comparative
Advantage which Dr Goh Keng Swee propounded for
Singapore's guiding economic principle - allowing the outsourcing
of curative medicine to JB, while Singapore concentrate on high-end
medicine.
Alternatively, we could have selected Singapore hospitals offering
low cost health care, while certain others could concentrate on the
high end savings.