Number of Nursing Homes, Available Beds and Average Occupancy Rates

13 Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis asked the Minister for Health in each of the last five years including year-to-date, what is the number of (i) nursing homes (ii) nursing home beds and (iii) available beds and average occupancy rate, broken down by the public, not-for-profit and private sectors respectively.

The Senior Minister of State for Health (Dr Koh Poh Koon) (for the Minister for Health): Annual statistics on nursing homes are published by the Ministry of Health (MOH) on its website.

The number of nursing homes has increased from 69 in 2016 to 77 in 2020, comprising 24 public, 22 not-for-profit and 31 private nursing homes in 2020. The number of licensed nursing home beds has also increased from around 13,000 to 16,300 in the same time period, where there were 6,400 public, 6,000 not-for-profit and 3,900 private nursing home beds in 2020. The number of available beds differs based on operational considerations. Bed occupancy rate has generally remained stable over the past five years at around 90%.

Mr Deputy Speaker: Mr Louis Chua.

Mr Chua Kheng Wee Louis (Sengkang): I thank the Senior Minister of State for his answers in terms of the statistics for the nursing homes situation. The Parliamentary Question really originated based on the concern that one of my residents had already been waiting for about a year for a nursing home bed and was told to be mentally prepared to wait up to three years for a space.

Given that the number of nursing homes has increased by just about one a year since 2006, I was just wondering, firstly, what plans does the Ministry have in terms of accelerating the build-up of nursing home beds? Secondly, what would the projected number of beds be in, say, five years' time or 10 years' time, if this is something that is inside the Ministry's projections, given the ageing population that we are having?

Dr Koh Poh Koon: Sir, the case that the Member has described, I would think it is rather unusual for a wait to extend to so many years. So, perhaps, if there are special circumstances and situations that he might want to highlight, he can actually send the information to us, we can take a look. It would be quite unusual for someone to have to wait years just to get into a nursing home. That is not my experience working in the hospitals as well, so I think that is quite unusual.

While the number of nursing homes may have increased somewhat, the key is not about the number of nursing homes but the number of beds available. Each nursing home can come in different sizes, so just because the increase in the number of homes may not be exponential does not mean that the number of beds available is not increasing significantly.

But what we want to do is to make sure that we do not entrench our elderly in institutions as they age. It is more important to make sure that they age in place and also, have good health to be able to carry on a meaningful life in their golden years. So, it is important to make sure that the intervention is about keeping them healthy, making sure that if they do have care needs, try and localise them within the community, so that they do have a social support network around them to promote emotional, physical well-being as well, such as keeping active and having engagements, rather than think about institutionalising them in nursing homes. That, in my mind, as a doctor, should be the very last resort for our elderly to be in.

If you speak to enough elderly, that is one of the things they fear a lot as well, to be kept in a home, away from their family. So, we should devote a lot more resources in helping them to be able to be cared for close to their families, especially in areas like home nursing and home care.