ST editorial echoes idiotic MPs' stupidity

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

A wider concern is whether steps are being taken to meet the rising needs for hospitalisation over the longer term. The Health Ministry has assured that with planned expansion in hospital facilities coming on stream, there will be 1,900 more acute hospital beds and 2,600 community hospital beds by 2020. Ng Teng Fong General Hospital will be completed this year, followed next year by two new community hospitals in Jurong and Yishun. Sengkang General Hospital is scheduled for completion by 2018. The urgency is in order given the needs of an ageing population.

Meanwhile, though, some difficult questions have to be asked. If it is true that the crunch was partly caused by the holiday season rather than by a spike in illness, it is a sad commentary on the attitudes of some Singaporeans. Choosing to go on holiday, while a relative lies sick in hospital, is a filially impious act. Knowing that this will delay his or her discharge from hospital - at the expense of those who need the beds more - is no less than an anti-social act. The fact that the hospital stay is paid for does not mitigate the social irresponsibility displayed. Hospitals are not hotels. Public hospitals, which are heavily subsidised with the taxpayers' dollars, certainly are not intended to cater to the holiday plans of people. Tackling the bed crunch will call for both steps to ramp up supply and moderate demand.


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