Hospital Emergency Department Capabilities for Severe Trauma

NAME AND CONSTITUENCY OF MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT Ms Joan Pereira, MP for Tanjong Pagar GRCAssoc Prof Daniel Goh Pei Siong, Non-Constituency MP

QUESTION NO. 3404

To ask the Minister for Health (a) whether the Ministry will consider requiring all private and public hospitals to be equipped and manned to handle severe and multiple trauma cases in their accident and emergency departments as part of our nation's emergency preparedness plan; and (b) whether we have sufficient emergency specialists and how many more will be trained in the next five years.

QUESTION NO. 3426

To ask the Minister for Health in light of the Lucky Plaza accident, whether private hospitals' emergency departments should be upgraded for a tiered national accident and emergency system involving both public and private hospitals to make better use of medical resources.

ANSWER

1   All public hospital Accident & Emergency (A&E) departments are equipped and capable of providing resuscitation, stabilisation and initial treatment for all life threatening emergencies, including trauma cases, for both adults and children.  Public hospitals must also fulfill MOH’s standards of trauma care.  Overall, the eight public hospital A&E departments^[1], which are spread out across Singapore geographically, provide adequate coverage to cater to emergency services in Singapore.

2     The Ministry of Health (MOH) has had ongoing discussions with the private hospitals about their capabilities in handling emergency care.  Currently, private hospitals are not configured to provide the full range of emergency and trauma services required to manage all life threatening emergencies or situations involving patients with multiple or serious injuries.  Over the last four years, MOH has been collaborating with Raffles Hospital for the management of non-life threatening and urgent SCDF ambulance cases.

3     MOH carefully manages the training pipeline for emergency medicine and surgical specialists to ensure that there are sufficient capabilities to meet national needs.  Currently, there are about 180 Emergency Medicine specialists and 240 general surgeons in Singapore.

[1] These are CGH, KKH, KTPH, NUH, NTFGH, SKH, SGH and TTSH.