SMA comments on MOH Committee of Supply 2024
The Ministry of Health (MOH) presented plans for healthcare during the 2024 Committee of Supply debate in Parliament on 6 March 2024. SMA responded to a media query from the Straits Times, and comments from SMA President Dr Ng Chee Kwan were quoted and published on 11 March.
Providing details on the rising cost of providing healthcare, Dr Ng highlighted that high dependency and intensive care units are costly to run. "Increasingly, diagnosis of many medical conditions requires the use of costly scans such as CT, MRI or positron emission tomography. The use of advanced surgical equipment such as the surgical robot has become commonplace. The standard of care for management of some cancers now includes genetic testing and targeted drug therapies."
Dr Ng further shared that in the outpatient setting, clinic operating costs are adversely affected by the high cost of rentals, and staff wages have also grown to keep up with inflation and the rising cost of living. In addition to direct patient care, time costs are increasingly being incurred when doctors and staff perform back-end work such as submission of claims to insurers and the government.
Last but not least, he opined that as the coverage of MediShield Life expands, insurers should also similarly extend their coverage such that all treatments and procedures approved for claims under MediShield Life are also claimable under Integrated Shield Plan policies.
The Straits Times article can be found at the following link: https://bit.ly/498N3un.
AMS-CFPS-SMA Tripartite Dinner
The three professional bodies – Academy of Medicine, Singapore (AMS), College of Family Physicians Singapore (CFPS), and SMA – endeavour to meet twice a year to discuss various issues relating to the healthcare system and professional matters.
A dinner meeting hosted by CFPS was organised on 7 March 2024. SMA representatives at the meeting included Dr Ng Chee Kwan (SMA President), Clinical Asst Prof Benny Loo Kai Guo (SMA Honorary Secretary) and A/Prof Anantham Devanand (SMA Centre for Medical Ethics and Professionalism Executive Director). Topics discussed included the new mandatory medical ethics continuing medical education requirements and telemedicine, among other matters.