QUALITY OF PALLIATIVE CARE IN SINGAPORE

QUALITY OF PALLIATIVE CARE IN SINGAPORE: 2.

Assoc. Prof. Paulin Tay Straughan asked the Minister for Health (a) whether he will comment on Singapore being ranked 18th in the Economist Intelligence Unit's report on Quality of Death that was released in 2010; (b) whether the Ministry has a national plan for palliative care given the growing significance of palliative care; and (c) whether the Ministry plans to set up a code of ethics that governs hospice care.

Mr Khaw Boon Wan: The Quality of Death Index by the Economist Intelligence Unit tried to measure the level of end-of-life care services across 40 countries. It ranked Singapore as Number 18 among these countries, and Number 2 in Asia. I find it a fair assessment. We were deemed to have done particularly well in areas of end-of-life care policies, in recognition, training and accreditation of end-of-life care practitioners, and in the availability of volunteers in end-of-life care.

The area where we could have done better was in the availability of end-of-life care facilities. We will, of course, continue to develop this sector. I began to pay some attention to this in the last five years. And I, myself, am satisfied with the progress that we have made but there is still much more that we have to do. In fact, I spoke about our plan in Parliament last month and I will not repeat it.

The Quality of Death Index researchers felt that we should articulate our plan into a formal national strategy for palliative care and publish it. We are in the process of doing so and will formulate one in consultation with the palliative care community. We will consider including a code of ethics in the national strategy. Although no formal code exists at the moment, our informal assessment is that existing providers do provide palliative care of high ethical standards.