Good morning.
Two years ago, my 69-year-old mum was referred to the A&E of a public hospital. We ended up waiting about a day and a half before she was warded because there was just no bed available.
In the meantime, she was placed in a makeshift observation ward packed with patients, men and women combined. This happened when strict COVID-19 protocols were still in place. But now that the height of the pandemic is over, why are we still hearing stories of long wait times for a bed?
About 50 of you wrote to us with your stories. So we set senior producer Kenneth Lim to find out if our public hospitals are in crisis – and what we can do about it.
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We approached public hospitals and healthcare clusters. “Only one hospital agreed to let us in and have our host Steven Chia experience for himself challenges on the ground in managing inflows and outflows of patients,” said Kenneth.
“And what I learned is that it’s not a simple issue that can be easily solved by building more hospitals and increasing bed capacity.”
An issue not often talked about is “overstayers”: Patients who insist on taking up bed space even if they are well enough to be discharged. We discover how it adds to the acute shortage of beds.
As we wind up the year, look forward to more investigations by Talking Point. In the coming weeks, we’ll tell you how best to do your laundry, if BPA-free bottles are really safer, and if there really is such a thing as zero-calorie food and drinks!
Imelda Saad
Executive Producer, Talking Point
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