CHANGI HOSPITAL (Outpatient services for Changi Village residents)

Mr Teo Chong Tee asked the Minister for Health whether the Changi Hospital will also provide outpatient treatment for residents from the nearby Changi Village, as most of the time residents from this village who call at the Hospital for medical attention are re-directed to the Somapah Outpatient Dispensary in Somapah Road which is about 6 1/2 kilometres away.

Dr Toh Chin Chye: Mr Speaker, Sir, the Changi Hospital has an Accident and Emergency Department to attend to traumatic and emergency cases. Its Specialist Outpatient Department caters for follow-up treatment of discharged patients and those referred by OPD doctors or by private practitioners for specialised consultation.

As in other hospitals, it is not the policy for these two departments to attend to non-traumatic/non-emergency cases or those not requiring specialist consultation. For this reason, patients with common or minor ailments reporting at Changi Hospital are advised to go to the Somapah Outpatient Dispensary. This is necessary to ensure that costly specialised services at hospitals are properly utilised to treat the acutely ill, especially when treatment for minor illnesses can be obtained from outpatient dispensaries.

During a four-month survey carried out recently in six hospitals a total of 79,951 cases were seen at the Accident and Emergency Department. Among the self-referrals more than 40% were non-emergency and non-traumatic cases. This is misuse of the Accident and Emergency Department which is already congested. I would therefore like to advise the public to go to the outpatient dispensaries if they are suffering from minor ailments. In this way, they will not overload the staff at the Accident and Emergency Department and will be helping the Government to hold down the rising costs of running hospitals.

However, if there are genuine emergency cases the Accident and Emergency units will attend to them since the outpatient dispensaries are closed at night.