An Uphill Task

An Uphill Task

Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan is taking flak again, this time for ramming through a legislation that is so blatantly lacking in details to prevent abuse that it practically screams: “Rape me”. But should we fault Khaw for the incompleteness or the legal team who drafted the law?

Khaw is one of the few Ministers that will not make you puke your breakfast, or prompt one to associate the arrogance, incompetence and greed trait with some party other than AIG.

He was last lambasted for abandoning the elderly offshore when he talked about the option of sending them to nursing homes in Johore Baru. The spirit of his message is clearer when you listen to his delivery in this video.

However, the clarification posted on the Ministry of Health (MOH) website brings back that sickening feeling in the stomach that the sincerity of the government initiative is suspect.

“We should try, but it would be a challenge. According to the Singapore investor in an upcoming nursing home in JB, his total cost for putting up the facility of 200 beds, including land, was estimated at S$10 million. This is less than the cost of putting up an outpatient polyclinic in Singapore, even excluding land cost.

And it is not just capital cost. Nursing homes are labour intensive. The wages of nurses here are more than double the wages in JB.”

It is mind boggling, to borrow Khaw’s own words, that an outpatient polyclinic can cost $10 million. But has anyone asked why the Singapore polyclinic has need of frills like flat screen displays in the waiting areas? Ever notice the fancy computers and PDAs the doctors are using? And there are the layers of overpaid civil service staff tugged away behind closed doors, racking up brownie points for 8 month performance bonuses. If ever land cost is added to the equation, you can bet it will be marked-to-market, just like the way Dhanabalan used opportunity cost to explain away the market level pricing of HDB flats.

The gross perversion of the truth here is that “the wages of nurses are more than double the wages in JB.” A well run nursing home in Singapore that charges the higher end rate of $2,000 a month employs Filipina nursing help at around $500. Proficiency in English is essential for dispensing daily medication. Cleaners
from Myanmar and China are probably paid less. The “in-house” doctor is Singaporean, but his consultation charges are a $40 extra, cost of medicines excluded. You don’t want to know the about the quality and quantities of the staffing in cheaper nursing homes here.

Khaw may be trying to do his best within the constraints of the government budget, a budget that allocates more taxpayers’ dollars to military toys like F-15 Eagles ($40 million each, depending on configuration) and Leopard tanks (estimated $13 million each for refurbished ones).

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