NOTICE PAPER NO. 2642
NOTICE OF QUESTION FOR ORAL ANSWER
FOR THE SITTING OF PARLIAMENT ON 7 MARCH 2024
Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Mr Yip Hon Weng
MP for Yio Chu Kang
Question 5842
To ask the Minister for Health (a) whether an update can be provided on the situation where ambulances are delayed as patients cannot be triaged by hospital staff due to peak caseloads at hospitals’ emergency departments; and (b) what are the Ministry’s measures and strategies to inform the public to seek medical assistance away from hospitals’ emergency departments in non-emergency cases.
Answer
1 Our Hospital Emergency Departments (EDs), while busy, are able to triage patients promptly to prioritise treatment for urgent cases and preserve valuable medical capacity.
2 Sometimes, a hospital ED may face a spike in urgent cases, for example, when the hospital is handling multiple patients from a major incident. In such a case, protocols for ambulance diversions to other hospitals will be activated. Occasionally, a number of ambulances may arrive at the same EDs at approximately the same time. In such situations, other than ambulance diversions, the hospital will work with the ambulance crew to triage and activate additional hospital resources to unload the ambulances as expeditiously as possible.
3 Currently, 40% of ED attendances are not life-threatening nor urgent. To encourage these patients to seek care at the General Practitioner (GP) clinics for non-urgent conditions, MOH introduced the GPFirst programme in 2014. Under this programme, if the patient is first seen by a participating GP and is assessed to require further care at the Accident & Emergency (A&E) department, the hospital will reduce A&E fees by $50. Currently, more than 1,000 GP clinics, including all Healthier SG clinics, participate in the GPFirst programme. MOH has also set up Urgent Care Centres, for urgent but non-life-threatening medical conditions, and NurseFirst, a non-emergency helpline where residents can receive useful medical advice.