The following is Part Two of a two-part response to Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong’s remarks on 4 September (see here) where he urged S’poreans to see things in perspective and to think of the poor.
Leong Sze Hian –
More hospital beds for the poor
In almost every survey done on the elderly and the poor, one of their greatest concerns was the affordability of healthcare.
In this connection, I refer to media reports (“Full house at Khoo Teck Puat Hospital” , ST, Jul 25) that the new Khoo Teck Puat Hospital has been full since it opened recently, and that the bed crunch has been so bad in the past couple of years that non-urgent surgery had to be put off, beds placed along corridors and hours spent waiting for an available bed.
According to the Department of Statistics’ Yearbook of Statistics 2010, the number of hospital beds in Singapore, has hardly changed – from 11,742 to 11,663, from 1999 to 2009.
The number of hospitals only increased by one, from 28 to 29.
During the same 10-year period, the population grew from 3.96 to 4.99 million.
Although the Health Mnistry has said that Singapore will not be caught out by a shortage of hospital beds again, even with the net increase of about 400 beds after the expected opening of the 700-bed Jurong General Hospital before 2015, and the closure of the 300-bed Alexandra Hospital, the total number of hospital beds is only expected to be about 12,613, even after adding the 550 beds from Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.
If not for allowing Medisave to be used for hospitalisation in 12 approved hospitals in Malaysia, since March this year, the shortage of hospital beds may be even worse.
At the current annual rate of growth in the population, at 1.1, 11.5 and 4.8 per cent, respectively, for Singaporeans, permanent residents and foreigners, and the long term target of a 6.5 million population, the shortage of hospital beds may not go away soon.
Perhaps what we may need to do is to spend more on healthcare, as I understand that Singapore’s healthcare spending to GDP is only about 4 per cent, with about 2 per cent of GDP on public healthcare spending in 2008.
In contrast, our neighbour, Malaysia, spent 4.8 per cent of GDP on healthcare in 2008.
The Singapore Tourism Board has been promoting Singapore as a medical tourism destination, with medical tourists to Singapore growing to 646,000 in 2008.
About half of Singapore’s medical visitors come from Indonesia, with the other 30-40 per cent coming from Malaysia and the Middle East. The remainder comes from Russia, China, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Also, more will be done to help Singapore meet its target of attracting 1 million medical tourists a year by 2012.
So, since the number of hospital beds did not increase over the last 10 years, and with the population increasing by 1.03 million plus another 646,000 medical tourists, is it any wonder that the waiting time for poorer Singaporeans seeking medical treatment, may be getting longer?
Billions in investment based on “gut-feel” decisions?
With all the constant rhetoric over the years about helping the poor, what about the billions of investments that we made? How much thought or analyses were made on what some of these billions could do for the poor?
I refer to media reports (“Why Temasek took China project”, Business Times, Jul 3) about Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong’s remarks that for Singapore’s industrial projects in Suzhou and Tianjin, on the government-to-government side, we did not do any economic feasibility study, and that we just felt in our guts that this was something good to do to engage China and that we could make it work.
Given that these were investments in the billions, I am rather surprised that we did not do any economic feasibility study.
What is perhaps even more alarming may be that this is only revealed now after decades, by way of a casual remark by the Senior Minister.
Are our billion dollar investments now still being made based on “gut” feel?
As we contemplate investing in other cities, perhaps now is a good time to evaluate what is the return on investment on our first Suzhou Industrial Park venture.
It may also be instructive if we evaluate our US$1.9 billion investment in Shin Corp which the Thai Government has indicated a keenness to buy back, PT Indosat and Telkomsel which have been deemed to have violated anti-trust laws in Indonesia, SingTel-Optus which at one point was estimated by analysts to have an estimated expected write-down of $8 billion, the US$5.4 billion investment in Dao Heng Bank which at one point had an estimated goodwill impairment of S$1.13 billion, etc.
I think we may be able to learn a lot from the above, with a view to learn from the lessons and not repeat the mistakes in the future.
Specifically, how and why have we failed in respect of regulatory, market, competitive and business intelligence, and privileged insights, in Mergers and Acquisitions’ (M &A) terminology, in our M & A activities?
On a brighter note, at least Temasek’s latest RMB 2 billion (S$400 million) investment through its subsidiary, Singbridge International, in the joint-project “Sino-Singapore Guangzhou”, to build the “China Knowledge City”, which is on the suburban area of Guangzhou city in southern China, had the benefit of the feasibility study done by the Keppel Group which signed the initial agreement in March 2009, before Singbridge’s takeover of the 50:50 joint project between Singapore and China.
Having said that, we should still ask: Could we not have used these billions to help the poor instead, especially given that S’pore’s income gap is among the widest in the world? Or, and if indeed these investments have been successful, how have they benefited the poor and the low-income?
Additional input by Andrew Loh.
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Yes, here is my take as a Singapore PR from a western country.
If they made Singapore citizenship more attractive , i.e allow dual citizenship, I would take it up.
If they force me to give up my existing citizenship, I would simply leave and go off to one of the many other countries of the world that welcome English speaking highly paid professionals.
Why wouldnt I give up my existing citizenship? Well most importantly there are the emotional reasons of loyalty to my country and my ancestors who fought for it.
And there are of course the pragmatic reasons. The piece of paper called a western passport is not just a travel document that opens doors around the world but is also a medical insurance policy, giving me free health care in my homeland if I choose to take it, a social welfare card giving me access to varous social welfare benefits, a pension plan for when I am old, and an education subsidy for my children giving them the right to study in Universities back home (and in our friendly neighbour) at a highly subsidised rate.
If Singapore Inc thinks that any rational human being would give all that up for a Singapore passport, they need to tweak their grip on reality very fast.
Rolento
Thx for the info, Rolento.Maybe our scholars in the gov’t didn’t even know abt this.Why am I not surprised?Because one of our MP’s doesn’t even know that the admin service in the gov’t has pension benefits for the top brass.
OriginalResonance
Quote: “Failure ought not be rewarded.”
So you consider disability a person’s failure, illness a failure, loss of job due to economy downturn a failure, elderly pensionless fulltime mothers a failure?? C’mon!
Quote: “Just look at the welfare states of Europe. All crumbling one by one under the weight of their unrelenting debts.”
Wow, even economic professors cannot confidently conclude the correlation and you can. All the Scandinavian countries are still going strong, so is Germany.
And you think Spore is not crumbling, and no debts? At least the Euro countries do not take measures as drastic as Spore like opening the floodgate to immigrants all over the world for cheap labour, opening iconic Casinos & make a big deal of them, allowing outsiders to buy even own public housing, allowing notorious people to launder their money in Sg etc etc?
So who is crumbling under debt? The CPF that SG Govt holds is a debt, they have to return to the people at some stage. They (Temasek) also sells bonds, thats a debt as well.
If your knowledge is from ST alone, don’t just shoot off your mouth.
Does anyone here know if the top brass pay any tax?
We have mainstream media who will never divulge such info. How can we know?
STOP talking about hospitals and the crap, as its “FUNDED” by our citizen’s medisave which is tied up, “FOREVER” unless one dies in, hahaha, hospital.
STOP ! using/taking the people’s money and justifying how “SMART” you are, jerkhead !!
you are damm stupid as stupid comes !!!
WHO DARES MM about this:
“We don’t have the ingredients of a nation, the elementary factors,” he said three years ago in an interview with the International Herald Tribune, “a homogeneous population, common language, common culture and common destiny.”
Dont ask the ST to ask him. They dont have the guts to even face him…let alone ask him!!
The ONLY “”Financial Prudence of the pap ias GAGAmen is the lining of their pocketd with obscenely hugh incomes, bonus and …… woo lah lahs!
Think of the poor? If they really think of the poor why the busted spending in YOG?
This is the PAP: contradicting themselves. A Fluid government.
A folow-up to comment from orang Singapura:
How many have observed that whenever LKY opened his mouth, The Shit Times gave him front page? Even when GCT was the PM he was given front page treatment only occasionally; most of the time GCT was good only for Prime Page or an inside page, sometimes at the tail end of the newspapers. The recent speech by GCT is just one such example.
Wow!! We are urged to see things in perspective and to think of the poor ! With all due respect Mr Goh, I, and my fellow concerned and educated Singaporean, need no reminding about seeing things in perspective, and certainly not about thinking of the poor !
Ironically, I think the ones who needed reminding are our elite ministers, MPs and the like who live in ivory towers looking out in twisted perception about themselves and the world.
The Online Citizen has done a tremendous job by showing us the FACT. The perspective is the cold, hard statistics that reflect:
1. The PAP and its GICs has no clear and well defined investment objectives. Investing our National Reserves has to be for the benefits of our nation: in education, defence, health care, public works and the treasury. Stop telling us Temasek has bought into this and that and made billions! What are these profits year after year are spent, reserved, reinvested for the long and short term benefits of Singapore? Has Temasek forgotten the prime differences in objectives between state investor and private investor?
2. The PAP does not consider looking after old and poor Singaporeans one of their priority as a government. What has our Ministry of Health been doing the past ten years? Probably it has not fought hard enough for sufficient funding to improve public health facilities for the poor, or it has simply been shut-off year after year because our government has other priorities, like building casinos?
Mr Goh, I have done what you have suggested me to do, a young Singaporean to “see things in perspective” and to think of the poor, and I am very disappointed with what I have seen!
Or did you mean to tell us to look at the world in perspective and say “ wow! how lucky we are that we have HDB”? (here I don’t even want to mention jobs and cost of living!), and “wow! how lucky we are that we don’t end up like the poor !” If this is really the message you were trying to get across to us then I am sorry, we do have a very dangerous generation and perception gap!
Last but not least, who are you to conclude so definitely that Europe is crumbling under the weight of its unrelenting debts! Europe had risen from the ashes of the two world wars, I don’t think you are qualified to make that statement! And I have made it very clear to my learned European friends that your statement does not represent the view of the young Singaporean.
What our people will benefit, directly or indirectly, from projects like Sino-Singapore Guangzhou” and the “China Knowledge City”? not to mention our Shin Corp debacle with Thaksin, is the financial and political costs still counting?
Yes, I am looking at things in
PERSPECTIVE !
Let us put a stop to useless Goh that brat about switerland standard of living for Singapore. What had he achieved for Singapore? Anybody can list them down? Just talk cock and sing song and pay himself millions!