01 Apr 2011
BY SALMA KHALIK HEALTH CORRESPONDENT
SINGAPORE will have its first public community hospital when the SingHealth cluster takes over Bright Vision Hospital from Singapore Buddhist Welfare Services today, at the latter’s request.
The Buddhist charity has run the community hospital in Hougang since 2001.
But last year, it realised it could no longer provide the level of care needed at a community hospital.
It asked Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan to take over the hospital. He, in turn, asked SingHealth, the public health cluster in the east which runs half of Singapore’s polyclinics and several hospitals, to do so.
SingHealth, through its flagship Singapore General Hospital (SGH), has been helping Bright Vision improve its workflow and efficiency.
The Venerable Kuan Yan, who heads the Buddhist voluntary welfare organisation (VWO), told The Straits Times that asking the Ministry of Health (MOH) to take over “was a difficult decision to make”.
But Bright Vision realised that running a community hospital was very different from running a nursing home.
“It requires significant medical capabilities which we, as a VWO, don’t have,” she said yesterday.
Community hospitals provide treatment to patients who do not have critical conditions but still require hospital care. In other words, they must have enough doctors and nurses.
This is the first time the public sector has taken over a facility from a VWO. These organisations are the main providers in step-down care, that is, post-hospital care.
Bright Vision is one of six community hospitals in Singapore, and together they provide a total of 800 beds.
The other five – St Luke’s, St Andrew’s, Ren Ci, Kwong Wai Shiu and Ang Mo Kio-Thye Hua Kwan – are all run by VWOs with some government funding.
With help from SGH, Bright Vision has raised the number of patients there from 150 last year to 200 now. But this is still below its capacity of 302 patients.
In a blog yesterday, Mr Khaw said he was surprised by the request from Ven Kuan.
He would have preferred the VWO to continue running the hospital with help from SGH.
But Ven Kuan told him she had “given the matter much thought and decided that a clean transfer of ownership to MOH would be in the best interest of the patients”, he wrote.
He added: “Nursing homes do not need much medical inputs; a community hospital is quite different.”
MOH had seconded Dr Wong Chiang Yin, previously chief operating officer at SGH and later at Changi General Hospital, to run the hospital last year as an interim solution.
Dr Wong has relinquished that post and in January this year, returned to the private sector. Mr Chua Puay Hian, the director of business development at both SGH and SingHealth, took over the helm at Bright Vision.
MOH will upgrade facilities from July and add 20 more beds.
Bright Vision is currently licensed to run 100 community hospital beds, 82 chronic sick beds, 32 hospice inpatient beds and 88 nursing home beds.
It will retain its charity and Institution of a Public Character status, so it remains a venue for needy patients.
Its 260 staff, including 170 nurses, will be employed by SingHealth, which will recruit more staff to man the upgraded hospital.
By relinquishing the hospital, Ven Kuan said she will be able to focus on Singapore Buddhist Welfare Services’ other charity projects.
The biggest will be the $34 million, 10-storey One-Stop Community Hub in Sengkang targeted to open in 2013.
The VWO will relocate its Grace Lodge nursing home in Punggol to the hub and expand its current 72 beds to 300.
The hub will also provide day rehabilitation services, respite and palliative care, a traditional Chinese medicine clinic and a vegetarian cafe.
The Buddhist charity will also stop its home-care services because of difficulty in recruiting staff.
Email: salma@sph.com.sg
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ST.Salma
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