Hospital bed crunch on Mondays, Tuesdays

Hospital bed crunch on Mondays, Tuesdays
By Ong Dai Lin, TODAY | Posted: 04 March 2010 1031 hrs

SINGAPORE: It is harder to find a hospital bed for patients on Mondays and Tuesdays compared with other days in the week.

This, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan told Parliament on Wednesday, is because doctors prefer to schedule patients to be admitted on Sundays so that non-urgent elective surgeries can be performed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Saying that there are sufficient hospital beds although there are mismatches on certain days like Mondays and Tuesdays, Mr Khaw said that one solution to the bed crunch problem in public hospitals is to delay electives by several months.

In places like Europe and the United States, patients generally wait a few months for non-emergency elective treatments. Said Mr Khaw: "We have been spoilt to be able to respond to electives within a few weeks. But because we have now reached this standard, it is very hard to reduce that."
He apologised that some patients have had to wait for a few hours before being admitted to their preferred wards, but stressed that the "clinical care for such patients is never compromised".

"When patients are waiting to be admitted, they continue to receive the appropriate care. Their doctors would ... order the necessary tests and initiate appropriate treatment immediately."

Patients in life-threatening situations are attended to immediately in the emergency departments.

For non-emergency cases that require admission, waiting time for a bed depends on the hospital they visit. For instance, at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, half the emergency department admissions in January were within two hours. Another 35 per cent of patients waited two to four hours, while five per cent waited over eight hours.

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.

But they were back to being "heavily stressed" last week, and are now short of beds as non urgent elective patients return for treatment.

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

- TODAY

- wong chee tat :)