SINGAPORE – Nineteen out of Singapore’s 25 polyclinics have spare capacity to take in more Healthier SG enrollees, though residents are encouraged to sign up with private general practitioner (GP) clinics, which can still take in more than 700,000 people.
Senior Minister of State for Health Janil Puthucheary gave this update in Parliament on Feb 7 in response to a question by Mr Gerald Giam (Aljunied GRC) on the average enrolment capacity for Healthier SG in polyclinics.
“Some patients who have been regularly visiting their neighbourhood polyclinics have reported being unable to enrol for Healthier SG under those polyclinics, as they are at full capacity. Instead, they have to enrol at a GP clinic which they are less familiar with,” said Mr Giam.
Dr Janil said the Healthier SG enrolment capacity of each polyclinic is different, depending on their size and existing workload. The average enrolment capacity is close to 30,000 per polyclinic. Of the 25 polyclinics, 19 polyclinics still have spare capacity to take in more enrollees, while six are reserving their capacities for their regular chronic patients to enrol before deciding if they can take in non-regular or new residents, he added.
Dr Janil encouraged residents to enrol at private GP clinics instead.
“A key design feature of Healthier SG is to extend the benefits of fully subsidised preventative check-ins, health screening and vaccinations and chronic drug subsidies to private clinics. There is currently capacity at Healthier SG GP clinics to enrol more than 700,000 residents,” said Dr Janil.
Dr Janil gave a breakdown of the healthcare institutions residents have enrolled with for Healthier SG in response to a supplementary question on the relative demand for polyclinics versus GPs.
He said 65 per cent of people enrolled for the Healthier SG programme are with a GP clinic.
Among polyclinic enrollees, 81 per cent are existing regular patients, while the remaining 19 per cent are non-regular and new patients. Of regular polyclinic patients, about 26 per cent have enrolled with a GP clinic.
In response to a question asking if all regular polyclinic patients can enrol at their polyclinic, Dr Janil said not all regular polyclinic patients will be able to enrol for Healthier SG at the polyclinic they have been attending.
“It depends what it is that they are a regular patient for. Do they have a chronic disease that falls under the Healthier SG programme? Are they regular for a short period of time or have they been a regular patient over a longer period of time?” he said.
“If you take it in the spirit that the polyclinic would like to serve those patients who have chronic diseases, which they’ve been following up and which Healthier SG will be able to assist them with, then the answer is yes,” said Dr Janil.
