Malaysia - Public hospitals facing chronic shortage of beds

THE shortage of beds in public hospitals continues to be a problem.

Changi General Hospital, for instance, has had to postpone some of its scheduled surgical operations at the end of last month and early this month as all its beds were taken.

Tan Tock Seng Hospital is once again putting patients in beds in corridors, where they usually spend a night before moving to a ward.

On Feb 2, half the inpatients at its emergency department had to wait more than six hours to get a bed. On three other days that week, half had to wait more than four hours, according to figures released by the Ministry of Health.

The median wait at public hospitals ranges from one to three hours.

The bed crunch in public sector hospitals – triggered by a rise in the number of inpatients plus longer stays because they are getting older – will ease only in 2014, when the 700-bed Ng Teng Fong Hospital opens in Jurong.

The ministry recently announced that it is bringing forward the opening of Sengkang Hospital by two years to 2018.

For now, public hospitals are doing what they can to hold the fort.

Changi General, which has the busiest emergency department in the city-state with about 500 patients a day, houses some patients at the next-door St Andrew’s Community Hospital.

It has also started sending patients recovering from hip fractures to a rehabilitation ward at Peacehaven Nursing Home, where they can spend a few weeks before going home.

The Straits Times / Asia News Network

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