In his article on the role of foreign patients in Singapore's healthcare system ("Why we must have foreign patients"; Wednesday), Dr Jeremy Lim stated that the National University Hospital (NUH) and the National Heart Centre Singapore (NHCS) had carried out 75 and fewer than 300 bypass operations respectively in the last 12 months.

The two public hospitals collectively performed more than a thousand heart bypass surgeries last year. The figures cited in the article are an underestimate of the total volume of such surgeries in the hospitals.

Lim Bee Khim (Ms)
Director, Corporate Communications Ministry of Health

• Dr Jeremy Lim's response:

The data cited in the article refer only to bypass surgeries and not to all forms of heart surgery.

The source of the data is the Ministry of Health website https://www.moh.gov.sg/content/moh_web/home/costs_and_financing/HospitalBillSize.html