Tina Tan
This is meant to be a light-hearted issue, and we have included articles ranging from food to patient anecdotes by Dr Tan Su-Ming and heartwarming clinic snippets by some of our medical students. Special thanks to Dr Wong Chiang Yin for indulging us in talking about his book How to Eat and his memories of eating.
We carry the results of SMA's Integrated Shield Plan providers' ranking survey, conducted back in January 2022. This is timely, given a recent report highlighting the plight of a patient whose insurer refused to pay for her cancer treatment.1 The discussion continues on how to balance the complexities of healthcare funding, patient needs, and business sustainability.
Last but not least, we feature an article on assisted living facilities in Singapore. This is an important issue to bring to the table, especially with Singapore's ageing population. There is no simple solution for how to ensure that our elderly (and our future selves) can "age in place" with a good quality of life, but it is heartening to know that behind the scenes, so many folks are tirelessly working to fill the gaps.
Alex Wong
26 April 2022 has inadvertently become a date to remember in the history of Singapore. While we are hardly at the end of the pandemic, the step down to Disease Outbreak Response System Condition Yellow marks a major milestone in the fight against COVID-19.
Two years ago at the height of the pandemic, I wrote a Facebook post urging my patients to keep calm and carry on. This was early on in the pandemic when we knew nothing about the virus. Every breath that we took and every movement that we made as healthcare professionals needed to be cautiously considered: wear your mask. Don and doff your personal protective equipment (PPE). Don't touch your face. Don't shake hands with your patients. Send away your elderly and infirm patients. Send away all the patients you can.
The PPE we wore protected us, but also became a physical and mental straitjacket. Our N95 masks kept us alive as humans, but killed our joy as healthcare professionals. As a healthcare professional, I live to interact with my patients. With my PPE donned, I could no longer touch them, hold their hands or feel the warmth of their skin. So much lost nuance that normally fills the gaps in between functional speech – the glue that bonds human beings together - was lost. The worst part of it was perhaps the fear. The fear of each other and of knowing nothing.
And yet we soldiered on, as healthcare professionals and as a people and a nation. Though the pandemic has thrown the worst of the world that this generation can recall at us, our healthcare workers have held the line and prevailed. We have loved and lost, we have suffered, and we have spent long hours toiling fearlessly where others have fallen away. We have emerged on the other side. Bent but not broken, we survey the path before us and we see the crack of dawn dancing tantalisingly on the path before us.
Our victory is also the victory of Singapore and the Singaporean. Mr Lee Kuan Yew once said this of his beloved people:
"You know the Singaporean. He is a hard-working, industrious, rugged individual. Or we would not have made the grade. But let us also recognise that he is a champion grumbler."
Truly we have been champion grumblers throughout this pandemic, but we have also proven that we are still the same hardworking, industrious and rugged people. I cannot recall a moment in which I have been prouder of my fellow champion grumblers and so with that, I invite you all to take a well-deserved break.
Have a good read in the months ahead, my friends.