Patients Treated at Specialist Clinics in Restructured Hospitals for Diabetes Mellitus

NOTICE PAPER NO. 1330
NOTICE OF QUESTION FOR WRITTEN ANSWER

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Ms He Ting Ru
MP for Sengkang GRC

Question No. 2092

To ask the Minister for Health (a) in each of the last five years, how many patients are treated at the specialist clinics in restructured hospitals for diabetes mellitus; (b) of these patients, how many are repeat patients; and (c) how many are referred to community clinics for the management of their condition.

Answer

The number of adult diabetic patients seen at the Specialist Outpatient Clinics (SOCs) at public acute hospitals for the past four years are shown in Table 1. Full data set for 2017 is not available. The absolute numbers are on an upward trend, because of an ageing society, and likely because of higher awareness of diabetes. Through programmes such as Chronic Disease Management Programme, we try as far as possible to manage such chronic diseases in primary care settings, but detailed numbers are not available. With Healthier SG, we aim to have more patients anchored in primary care with a familiar family doctor for the management of chronic diseases including diabetes.

Table 1: Number of diabetic patients seen at Specialist Outpatient Clinics (SOC)*

* Includes count of the same diabetic patient who have attended another hospital within the reporting year.