Is our HealthCare World Class or only just for the Rich?
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If our healthcare is lauded as world class and basically advanced and top of the world, why then do we lag behind Sweden???
And the last sentence - 'It suggests that the Malays may have less than optimal access to health care.' - gives me the impression that good HealthCare here, is only accessible to the well heelled. Or another term familiar to many of us now - ELITES.
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SO you have asthma?
Well, there's good and bad news.
The good news is that asthma death rates are falling, not only in Singapore but all the over the world.
The bad news is that in terms of figures, Singapore still lags behind first-world countries such as Sweden.
Between 150 and 200 people die from asthma attacks here each year. This puts the risk of dying from asthma here much higher than in Sweden.
If you are a Singaporean and if you have asthma, your risk of dying from the disease is six times higher than that of someone in Sweden.
A team at the National University Hospital has just analysed eight years of data on the asthma death rate here.
An article based on part of their findings was published in the May issue of Thorax, an international medical journal.
Said Professor Lim Tow Keang, senior consultant and head of the division of respiratory and critical care medicine at NUH, who was involved in the study: 'The Singapore eight-year data shows that a Singaporean Chinese has a higher than three-times risk of dying from asthma than someone from Sweden.
'But for the Malays, it is even worse. The risk is over 15 times higher.'
That is unacceptably high, he said.
'Sweden is considered world-class in terms of its asthma control and we can do as well if patients follow through on prevention medicine,' he said. (See report on facing page.)
What is most disturbing to him is that the gap between the Chinese and the Malays has persisted over the years.
'It suggests that the Malays may have less than optimal access to health care.'
Source : http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,4136,106385,00.html? -
sometimes we have to realise that its not the cure that should improve, it is the prevention, and its not because of medical aid, its because of the people
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Oh and there is more about Asthma - HealthCare...
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She'd rather collapse and go to hospital than spend $1,000 to control asthma
May 11, 2006
SHE'S been in and out of hospital 18 times.
Madam Surayah nearly died 6 of the 18 times she was in hospital. --DAVID TAN
Each time for acute asthma attacks.
Madam Surayah Abdul Manap, 45, is the National University Hospital's (NUH) 'star' patient, much to her doctors' exasperation.
She would rather collapse and be hospitalised, instead of taking medication to prevent acute asthma attacks.
The reason: If she is hospitalised, she can use Medisave to pay the bills.
Six of those times, she became comatose and needed resuscitation and breathing support in a hospital emergency department.
From 1997 to February 2004, whenever she suffered from such acute attacks, she needed to be hospitalised. Each stay averaged four days.
She knew she needed to take medication every day to keep her asthma at bay, and also more medication to keep the attacks mild when they happened.
'But that type of medication is very expensive,' she told The New Paper.
Cost was the major consideration and impediment in her taking the medication.
The preventive medication would have cost her more than $1,000 a year.
She chose to become sick and be hospitalised when the need arose, even when each hospitalisation cost her and her husband, a tyre technician, an average of $1,000.
'For hospitalisation, we can claim from Medisave,' explained the housewife and mother of five.
'For medication, where can we come up with the money?' In 2004, she became one of nearly 10,000 high-risk asthma patients put on the Singapore National Asthma Programme (Snap).
From having to pay over $1,000 a year, Madam Surayah needed to pay only $150 every three months for the preventive medication, which works out to be about 50 per cent less.
She has not suffered a single acute attack since. -
From having to pay over $1,000 a year, Madam Surayah needed to pay only $150 every three months for the
Based on the above article, I wonder, how does or can the latest Medisafe scheme of $300 per year, cover for such an ailment? It is in this instance, ILLOGICAL and INEFFECTIVE. It's a scheme initiated without much consideration.
As such, it's either they revise it, or just abolish it altogether.
It's useless. -
Sweden has a good healthcare system but also one that is very expensive. All is not rosy as you assume. See http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/Sweden.htm
One major problem confronting Malays and poorer sectors of society is the price of drugs. Note that it is not the lack of access to doctors but the high cost of medication that has held back an asthmatic patient, based on the interview.
Pharmaceutical companies earn high revenues from these drugs which are patented. Unfortunately, these patented drugs which are available in Sweden and other developed countries are also more effective.
If we want to make these expensive drugs available to the poor, we need to subsidize them and that means higher taxes. Are Singaporeans prepared to pay more? With an aging population and a declining workforce with consequently a smaller tax base, can our young support us as we grow older?
Allowing medisave to be used for chronic ailments will alleviate the problem to some degree. At the least, patients will be able to afford better drugs, even if they are not as good as those available in Sweden. -
You know, it's hell lot better, paying more taxes and getting something good out of it than paying taxes, and not benefiting much from it.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Sweden has a good healthcare system but also one that is very expensive. All is not rosy as you assume. See http://laissez-fairerepublic.com/Sweden.htm
One major problem confronting Malays and poorer sectors of society is the price of drugs. Note that it is not the lack of access to doctors but the high cost of medication that has held back an asthmatic patient, based on the interview.
Pharmaceutical companies earn high revenues from these drugs which are patented. Unfortunately, these patented drugs which are available in Sweden and other developed countries are also more effective.
If we want to make these expensive drugs available to the poor, we need to subsidize them and that means higher taxes. Are Singaporeans prepared to pay more? With an aging population and a declining workforce with consequently a smaller tax base, can our young support us as we grow older?
Allowing medisave to be used for chronic ailments will alleviate the problem to some degree. At the least, patients will be able to afford better drugs, even if they are not as good as those available in Sweden.
If taxes are high, and public services are good to justify for it, WHY NOT??? -
the charges are definitely world class!!!
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Singapore Healthcare world class?
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there are a lot restrictions when it comes to the medisave.
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so we do pay taxes for the govenment to launder or try to buy over other ppl... wow... not to help us with our health care