Foreign Patients Referred for Medical Treatment in Public Hospitals in Singapore

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
ASSOC PROF DANIEL GOH PEI SIONG 
NON-CONSTITUENCY MP

Question No. 2426

To ask the Minister for Health (a) how many patients and how much revenue did the referral contracts for foreign patients bring in for the public hospitals during the life of this practice; and (b) whether this had compromised Singaporeans' priority access to public healthcare resources. 

Written Reply

1   The priority of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and public healthcare institutions (PHIs) is to serve Singaporeans’ healthcare needs.  Our PHIs are not allowed to actively market themselves to foreign patients.  MOH has also recently asked PHIs to cease any contracts with service providers to assist foreign patients referred for medical treatment in Singapore.  Today, none of our PHIs have contracts with such service providers anymore.

2   There are foreign patients who travel to Singapore to seek medical treatment on their own accord.  Between 2013 and 2017, such patients make up about 1.5% of the total inpatient and day surgery attendances at our PHIs.  Those whose referrals were supported by contracted service providers constituted about 0.4% of attendances in PHIs that had such contracts.  Revenue from such patients made up 0.8% of total revenue in these PHIs. 

3   Singaporeans remained the majority of patients treated in PHIs.  Foreign patients have not impacted our PHI’s delivery of services and subsidised appointment slots given to Singaporeans.  In fact, the median waiting time for new subsidised specialist appointments has improved steadily from 28 days in 2013 to 22 days in the first half of 2018.  MOH will continue to work with our PHIs to ensure that meeting Singaporean’s healthcare needs remains our priority.