Treatment from Self-inflicted Injuries not Covered under MediShield Life

Ms Anthea Ong asked the Minister for Health (a) why is "treatment of self-inflicted injuries or injuries resulting from attempted suicide" not covered under MediShield Life; and (b) whether the Ministry will consider removing this from the standard exclusions under MediShield Life.

Sir, the general rule is that treatment of self-inflicted injuries or injuries resulting from attempted suicide is excluded from MediShield Life, so as to not encourage this kind of behaviour. Nonetheless, exceptions can be considered where such injuries might arise from mental illnesses.

I thank the Senior Minister of State. In a Parliamentary Question (PQ) that I had filed last month, it was shared that from 2016 to 2018, we had about 300 claims in this category that were excluded every year. Would the Senior Minister of State Edwin Tong please share if there will be a review at least to see if we can include such injuries?

As I had mentioned, we exclude them as a general rule because you do not encourage this kind of behaviour. We do not want to encourage people to self-inflict injuries and that is why MediShield Life does not cover it. Nonetheless, to the extent that these injuries arise as a result of an existing mental condition that might pre-dispose the claimant or the person to inflicting the injuries on himself or herself, in those situations, we can consider exceptions to the general positions.