Long Waiting Time by Subsidised Patients to Get Admission for Operations

Mr K Karthikeyan asked the Minister for Health whether the Ministry has ways to reduce the long waiting time by subsidised patients to get an admission for an operation.

Admission into public hospitals is prioritised based on the severity of patients' conditions. For surgical emergencies, such as major trauma, our public hospitals maintain 24-hour emergency surgical services to respond to these needs promptly.

For patients requiring non-urgent surgical operations, these are usually pre-planned. The median waiting time across public hospitals for such planned surgical operations for subsidised patients was 14 days in 2013.

Our public hospitals adopt a multi-pronged approach to manage pre-planned surgeries. For example, where appropriate, patients can undergo day surgeries. About 60% of surgeries

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in our public hospitals are now performed as day surgeries, removing the need for an admission. Day surgeries benefit patients as they are more convenient and save patients time and the cost of an inpatient stay.

For some surgeries, patients can also be admitted on the day of surgery, instead of one or two days earlier. Such patients would attend a pre-admission outpatient visit for a pre-operation assessment and preparation.

There are also ongoing efforts to increase surgical specialists and operating theatre capacity. The number of specialists in the main surgical specialties has increased from about 800 in 2008 to 1,100 in 2013 and on 25 September this year, the National Heart Centre Singapore opened its new building with three new operating theatres.