Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Raffles Hospital Runs out of Blood - woman dies

A woman is admitted to hospital because she was bleeding excessively. The 44 year old woman developed complications in her pregnancy to twins. 44 years old???

The hospital apparently asked the family to round up blood donors before it could release more blood to the woman. Now that's bizarre! That might be an exaggeration from the family or a poor choice of words from a hospital administrator. Hopefully, the medical authorities will investigate.

Read the story here: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/287449/1/.html

But having experienced the quality of care here in Singapore- I'm more inclined to believe the family's story.

Not too long ago, I had to have surgery here at one of the surgery rooms @ the Paragon. After the operation, the head nurse demanded that I pay up for the operation which cost a fair bit. I had brought along my cheque book - but at the last minute they refused to accept it. Nets also wouldn't work for such a large amount. I think the silly woman expected me to wheel out a suitcase filled with cash. Anyhow, still in my surgrical gown, and still drowsy like crap from the op, I waited in the lounge room, while they discussed the issue. The nurse then got me to withdraw whatever I could from my various accounts - whilst she was holding onto me - still affected by the meds. It was a shit ordeal- if they had informed me about the need for upfront cash payment, I would have brought the damn cash. They let me go- then later called me up - and asked me to post them a cheque for the remainder... crazy.

The worse experience I had was at TTSH- back in my NS army daze - the chief surgeon there was going to operate on me - they stacked all the patients in the waiting area. The surgery nurse, was just totally draconian and was totally rude. The anaesthetise was inexperienced and it took him 5 attempts to jab the needle into my spine. He failed so they had to call another doctor to attempt it. At the operating table, I could feel the knife, no kidding. When I complained, the head nurse grabbed me and yelled at me to shut up or she'd shove this - showed a big needle to me. WTF, and I thought these are the @#$ers us NS soldiers are here to protect???

I'm afraid the standard of care here in Singapore is still decidedly mixed - some of it first-world, other parts third-world or soviet, esp. the administration aspect.




2 comments:

lucky tan said...

YM,

I've done a series on healthcare including the story about the woman in my blog http://singaporemind.blogspot.com

It is becoming worse as healthcare becomes more profit oriented rather than people
oriented. For A&E, $70 is collected first even before you get to see the doctor to get treatment.

Singapore govt has figured out that healthcare is a goldmine of profits, more resources now are allocated to treat medical tourists (read millionaire from Indonesia, Saudi, etc). Last year Singapore had 410,000 medical tourist.

So do the poor in Singapore have medical care?...Ask them if they have money first.

Lucky Tan

Yauming YMC said...

Its not just the medical sector- what about property too? The current boom is also largely fueled by foreigners who are buying up Singapore properties. Pretty soon all the property here will be in foreigners' hands, haha. At that point, I'll probably retire to Tasmania. My Uncle's neighbor has 90,000 sq feet of land which he wants to sell for $400k :) Plenty of fresh oysters to be collected in the bay. No smog. Fresh air.