Upgrading Accident and Emergency Departments in All Private and Public Hospitals to Enable Them to Handle Severe and Multiple Trauma Cases

7 Ms Joan Pereira asked the Minister for Health (a) whether the Ministry will consider requiring all private and public hospitals to be equipped and manned to handle severe and multiple trauma cases in their accident and emergency departments as part of our nation’s emergency preparedness plan; and (b) whether we have sufficient emergency specialists and how many more will be trained in the next five years.

8 Assoc Prof Daniel Goh Pei Siong asked the Minister for Health in light of the Lucky Plaza accident, whether private hospitals’ emergency departments should be upgraded for a tiered national accident and emergency system involving both public and private hospitals to make better use of medical resources.

The Senior Minister of State for Health (Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai) (for the Minister for Health): Sir, with your leave, may I take Question Nos 7 and 8 together?

Mr Speaker: Please do.

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: Mr Speaker, all public hospital Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments are equipped and capable of providing resuscitation, stabilisation and initial treatment for all life threatening emergencies, including trauma cases, for both adults and children. Public hospitals must also fulfill MOH's standards of trauma care. Overall, the eight public hospital A&E departments, spread out across Singapore, provide adequate coverage to cater to emergency services in Singapore.

MOH has had on-going discussions with private hospitals about their capabilities in handling emergency care. Currently, private hospitals are not configured to provide the full range of emergency and trauma services required to manage all life-threatening emergencies or situations, involving patients with multiple or serious injuries. Over the last four years, MOH has been collaborating with Raffles Hospital for the management of non-life threatening and urgent SCDF ambulance cases.

MOH carefully manages the training pipelines for emergency medicine and surgical specialists to ensure that there are sufficient capabilities to meet national needs. Currently, there are about 180 Emergency Medicine specialists and 240 general surgeons in Singapore.

Ms Joan Pereira (Tanjong Pagar): I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. I have one supplementary question. My concern, really, is whether all our urban areas and housing estates in Singapore will be able to have swift access to emergency services based on the existing locations of emergency departments across Singapore.

Mr Edwin Tong Chun Fai: As I had mentioned earlier, the public hospitals which are capable of handling all forms of emergencies and life-threatening services to both adults and children are spread out geographically across the island. There will be sufficiently swift access to these services should the need arise. In addition, the number of specialists who are in the pipeline and whom we are training currently, will increase by about 43% over the next five years. These specialists will add to the availability of services and will also add to the pool of emergency specialists who will be able to deal with such situations.