While the new hospital is still on the drawing boards, construction of Jurong General Hospital, originally scheduled to be completed in 2015, will be sped up now that construction costs have fallen, said Mr Khaw. -- ST PHOTO: WANG HUI FEN
ANOTHER hospital in the east will be developed in about 10 years' time when the cohort of baby boomers will cross into their 70s.
This will ease the burden on Changi General Hospital (CGH), whose emergency department is one of the busiest now, possibly because of an overflow of patients from other hospitals, said Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan on Sunday.
He reiterated this need for an additional hospital at a National Heart Centre's 10th anniversary celebrations event, a day after he spoke about it at a nursing awards ceremony.
'What we should try to avoid, is another hospital becoming like Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) in five to eight years' time,' he told reporters.
TTSH has the busiest emergency department in Singapore.
The opening of the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital in Yishun in 2010 may take some steam off TTSH and in turn, relieve CGH of its overflow problem.
Even so, with Pasir Ris, Punggol, Sengkang growing in the next 10 years, CGH will not be able to cope with the number of residents in these areas.
While the new hospital is still on the drawing boards, construction of Jurong General Hospital, originally scheduled to be completed in 2015, will be sped up now that construction costs have fallen, said Mr Khaw.
Other medical facilities, like the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School and the new SGH Pathology building at College Road are also expected to open next year and 2011 respectively.
'These projects are our commitment to building capacity and raising capabilities. These are long-term commitments. The economic downturn will not stop us,' he said.
The slowdown has given rise to other opportunities too, said the minister, like those looking for a mid-career switch to the medical sector.
These people can fill nursing roles, for which there is a demand. He said the Government will ramp up recruitment and train more staff during this period.
He also assured Singaporeans not to worry about healthcare costs in these gloomy times.
Most people have sufficient savings in their Medisave - now at a total of $40 billion and growing at $2 billion a year.
'These are giant umbrellas for the rainy days,' he said.
Medisave and endowment funds for the poor and the elderly, Medifund and Eldercare Fund, have a combined reserve exceeding $42 billion.
This is 14 times Singapore's annual operating health expenditure of about $3 billion, said Mr Khaw.
