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Singapore: Nursing Homes to Admit Patients from Only One Hospital
By
Lee
Hui Chieh
June 11, 2003 Singapore - All public hospital
patients who need additional nursing home care after being discharged will
be moved to homes which, from now on, will admit patients from only one
hospital. Similarly, nursing home
residents who need to be hospitalised can only be referred to a designated
hospital. Previously, most nursing homes
accepted patients from any hospital. Nursing homes will also be
required to monitor daily all feverish patients and submit their
temperature records to the Health Ministry. The new measures, announced
yesterday, will reduce the risk of the Sars bug or other infections
spreading throughout the health-care system. This could happen if patients
from different hospitals mix at the nursing home where they are
convalescing. Many of the residents tend to be
elderly and recuperating from illnesses or suffering from chronic
diseases, which can sometimes mask the symptoms of Sars or other
infections. During the Sars outbreak, an
elderly woman who was staying in a Loyang nursing home contracted Sars
when she was warded at Tan Tock Seng Hospital. She later spread the bug to a
nurse and her daughter-in-law who visited her at the nursing home, before
being admitted to Changi General Hospital. The elderly woman later died of
Sars. The new measures, announced by
the ministry at a press conference yesterday, are the latest taken to
prevent new infections from taking root in nursing homes. Other measures include isolating
patients who have recently been discharged from hospitals for about 10
days when they are first admitted, or when they return, to the nursing
homes. Patients will also be isolated if they have a fever. The latest measure will see the
53 nursing homes here being divided into separate clusters, with each
group attached to one of the six restructured hospitals. The Straits Times understands
that exceptions may be made for patients who may not be able to stay in
certain homes for dietary or religious reasons. For example, a Muslim patient
may choose to go to a nursing home outside the designated cluster, if none
of the homes inside provide halal food. Private patients who prefer to
seek medical attention at private hospitals can continue to do so. Nursing home operators
interviewed yesterday were largely supportive of the measures, but saw
some problems implementing this policy. A mismatch in the number of
patients being discharged from a particular hospital and the number of
beds available in its cluster of nursing homes could result in one group
having too many beds, while another too few, said Mr Pritpal Singh, 39,
nursing administrator of both the Nightingale and Greenview nursing homes
in Braddell Road. Said Mr
Jonathan Koh, 44, chief executive officer of The Lentor Residence in
Lentor Avenue: 'Some people may have doctors they want to go back and see
in other hospitals... so they and their family members may not be happy
about it.' Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
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