Singapore: MOH Expands Facilities for Elderly with Mental & Psychiatric Illnesses 

By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia 

May 20, 2009

Singapore

To prepare for an ageing population, the Ministry of Health (MOH) is building more nursing homes and community hospitals. There will also be more facilities for those with mental illnesses and dementia. 

Psychiatric care facilities in Singapore such as the Hougang Care Centre are currently operating at full capacity and with an ageing population, demand for such long-term care services will go up. 

So the Health Ministry is supporting the expansion of two such care centres and will also build a 300-bed nursing home by 2012 to take in psychiatric patients with stable condition. 

Irene Sng, assistant director, Hougang Care Centre, said: "I'm happy to hear the government is supporting the expansion so that we can bring in more people with mental illness so as to help them reintegrate into society." 

The Health Ministry intends to expand nursing home capacity from the current 9,200 beds to 14,000 over the next decade. 

Besides relocating nursing homes run by voluntary welfare organisations such as Villa Francis Home and Singapore Christian Home to larger sites, it also intends to build two new nursing homes which can take in elderly with dementia. 

Together, these two homes will house about 500 patients and it will be ready in four years’ time. 

To tackle end-of-life issues, six nursing homes will undergo a pilot programme, led by Tan Tock Seng Hospital, to study the integration of acute care, long-term care and palliative care. They will share the expertise with other homes later. 

Public healthcare facilities will also be expanded with the building of the 700-bed Jurong General Hospital, which will be ready in 2014. It will be co-located with a 200-bed community hospital that offers sub-acute and rehabilitative patient care. 

Mr Foo Hee Jug is the newly appointed chief executive officer of Jurong General Hospital. He is currently the group chief operating officer of SingHealth. 

Associate Professor Cheah Wei Keat, head of the Division of General Surgery at the National University Hospital, will be the Chairman of Jurong General Hospital's Medical Board. 

Besides building facilities to care for Singaporeans in their old age, the Health Ministry is also studying how to help them save for such care. 

Medisave will be built up to play the role of Eldersave and the ministry is still studying how this can be done and whether or not it will involve additional contributions. 

ElderShield, the insurance for long-term care, and Elderfund, the safety net to help poor elderly pay medical bills, already exists in the form of Medifund Silver. 

To support such expansions, recruitment for healthcare professionals has been ramped up. 

In the first three months of the year, more than 2,000 people were hired. About 60 per cent or 1,200 of these jobs were filled by Singapore citizens and of these, about 21 per cent or 250 were above 40 years old. 

As of April, there are another 2,000 immediate job vacancies waiting to be filled. About 20 per cent are for nursing, 40 per cent for medical and allied health, and the rest are for administrative and support positions. 

The Health Ministry is also launching a new Healthcare Graduate Studies Award from May for fresh graduates to pursue graduate studies in healthcare-related disciplines which are in need. Examples of these disciplines include microbiology, medical informatics and epidemiology. 

MOH is also working with the Education Ministry to explore collaborations with reputed foreign universities to develop degree upgrading opportunities for current diploma-level graduates in selected Allied Health professions, such as Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy. 

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