The following article appeared in Streats a couple of days ago,
I believe.
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Doctors, heal thy suffering sector
By CONRAD RAJ
WHENEVER you ask about the high cost of services in Singapore,
whether in health care or at one time in port services, the
standard answer is that you have to pay for quality.
It seems to me that this argument has worn thin.
Singapore once used to be a shoppers' paradise. No longer.
Escalating rentals and other costs have pushed up prices here. At
the same time, elsewhere in the world, products of the same or even
better quality are being offered at far lower prices than in
Singapore.
Yet, many here still cling on to the "we are better" stance,
implying that others can't match our overall package because they
fall short in quality or flexibility, and hence we can maintain our
higher costs.
That surely is a wrong attitude to take.
PSA Corporation (formerly the Port of Singapore Authority) learnt
at great cost and some embarrassment the fallacy behind that
approach.
Its inability or failure to agree to the demands of the AP Moller
Group, parent of Maersk Sealand and the world's largest operator of
container ships, resulted in the Copenhagen-headquartered company
not only moving most of its operations to the Port of Tanjung
Pelepas in Johor but also taking a stake in the port.
With the help of Maersk's expertise, Pelepas is now aggressively
competing with Singapore and was also able to lure Evergreen, then
the second biggest user of PSA's facilities, to follow it to
Johor.
The port stake offered by Pelepas may have weighed heavily in the
Maersk decision but observers say that Pelepas, also held out the
promise of lower fees.
Talk is that Maersk is still doing a lot of business at PSA
wharves, but the initial shift to Pelepas should have been a signal
to other Singaporean companies and industries.
Alas, anecdotal evidence indicates that the PSA lesson seems to
have been lost on our medical and health-care sector, once the
region's undisputed leader.
For example, when a reporter from this paper recently talked to our
eye specialists about the disturbing trend of Singaporeans going
abroad to seek cheaper cosmetic surgery in places like Bangkok and
Kuala Lumpur, the replies emphasised the quality here rather than
price.
The Singapore National Eye Centre told Streats: "The
centre/surgeon'strack record, experience, quality control and
accreditation need to be considered."
AsiaMedic chairman and ophthalmologist Low Cze Hong said: "Be aware
of risks in places where hygiene and sanitary standards are not
what we expect in Singapore. We will not cut costs or prices just
to compete and risk patients' interests."
The fact is that reporters of the various media here who have
visited Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur have been impressed by the
facilities.
For instance, they seemed to have the latest in eye surgery
equipment and doctors who had no problems discussing procedures in
English.
A colleague, after undergoing Lasik treatment for his eyes in
Thailand, described Bangkok's Bumrungrad Hospital as a five-star
hospital. The hospital, Thailand's largest private health care
centre, last year treated more than 3,000 Singaporeans. In all,
Bumrungrad treated more than 300,000 foreigners from 140
countries.
Health care has become big business for Thailand. While the Tourism
Authority of Thailand doesn't track medical tourism, it is
estimated that up to 800,000 foreigners used Thailand's hospitals
last year, bringing in about 19 billion baht (S$815 million) a 25
per cent jump over 2002.
Malaysia is no slouch either. When the Makhota Medical Centre in
Malacca was established in 1998, it had less than 1,000 patients
from Indonesia. Four years later it had 15,600.
While the Government has gone some way in trying to help the
healthcare industry here reduce costs, the charges are still high
relative to our neighbouring competitors.
According to some estimates, open heart surgery here costs about
US$11,500 (S$19,800), compared with US$7,000 in Bangkok and
US$6,300 in Kuala Lumpur or Malacca.
A day's unsubsidised surgery for cataracts here can cost anything
from $2,671 to $3,501. A similar procedure costs about $1,274 in
Bumrungrad and $1,458 at Mahkota.
Some of our hospitals here have begun dropping prices, but it seems
by not enough.
There is one group of people who can help make a difference: our
surgeons.
I'm by no means asking them to live up to the extremes of the
Hippocratic Oath parting with their knowledge for free.
But if Singapore seriously harbours (no pun intended) any intention
to be once again the region's undisputed healthcare hub, our
doctors need to charge less.
After all, they have a vested interest in our healthcare industry's
health. A stream of ill foreigners slipping through their skilled
fingers and heading to other shores could create a critical mass
that becomes impossible to attract back.
And it would be a shame if this came to pass just because some top
doctors found it too hard to give up their dreams of garages full
of Porsches and wine cellars brimming with Petrus.
