HEAD O - MINISTRY OF HEALTH

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Debate in Committee of Supply resumed.

Head O (cont.) –

Mr Khaw Boon Wan: Madam, Mr Low is correct that home care and home hospice are important. Those are all part and parcel of long-term care. We use the term "long-term care" because it is easy to use, easy to say and we define it loosely. I use it to mean any healthcare outside the hospitals. So it includes a wide range – community hospital, nursing home, hospices, home healthcare – and, increasingly, home care will be a significant segment of that. We must develop and expand all those. I see this whole journey as trying to improve quantity, that means scale it up; quality, that means, for example, the nursing home's rehabilitative activities must be able to be scaled up, ie, upskilled, and also have diversity. Because, in terms of different kinds of services, the needs may vary, different families have different needs and different patients may have different needs. So all those efforts will be what we are embarking upon over the next few years. We definitely would have

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to pump in more money and resources into all these.

But back to the Member's point about home hospice and home care, the VWO home hospices are all funded by the Ministry of Health. While they raise donations and get supported by the public, they also receive subventions from the Ministry of Health. But as we scale up, of course, more subventions will have to flow down by the sheer increase in clientele and services that they are providing. But I took comfort that when I last looked at cancer patients – because cancer is more predictable, in the sense that we know there is a prognosis, and if the patient is at an advanced stage, the doctor cannot be precise about how many weeks or months but, at least, if it is end stage, they can plan for their end of life – the majority are able to die at home supported by us, whether it is HNF, hospice movement, home care or whatever. And we will see many more such cases, going forward.

The Chairman: Dr Lam, having listened to the responses, would you like to withdraw your amendment?

Dr Lam Pin Min: Madam, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Minister and the Senior Parliamentary Secretary for the comprehensive and engaging debate in this House. As always, it is so refreshing and reassuring to hear the Minister share his Ministry's strategy and also his own personal philosophy to live well, live long and with peace of mind.

On that note, I seek leave to withdraw the amendment.

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Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

The sum of $3,580,115,300 for Head O ordered to stand part of the Main Estimates.

The sum of $496,845,000 for Head O ordered to stand part of the Development Estimates.

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