ENSURING everyone has access to better health care while reducing the financial burden as well - that is Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan's New Year resolution.

The road map he has in mind will see improved health-care facilities that are also affordable at the same time, especially for the needy.

At a community event yesterday morning, Mr Khaw gave reporters a glimpse of the road map he has charted for his ministry this year - a year he expects will be 'busy' but 'meaningful'.

At the top of his agenda is making sure everyone has access to good health-care facilities and services.

Mr Khaw wants to further improve the standards of the lower-end public hospital wards here to make them more comparable with the costlier public hospital wards and those at private hospitals.

But he noted this could lead to an unintended effect.

If the standards at the cheaper, highly subsidised wards are comparable with those at the higher end, then even those who could afford more expensive health care might opt to stay in these wards.

Such an outcome is undesirable as this would mean less funds for people who truly need the highly subsidised wards, he said.

Means testing - to ascertain who needs the most financial help - may have to be the solution, and Mr Khaw will speak on this issue today at an event at Changi General Hospital.

Also on his mind is the health-care financing worries of the middle-income group, who are likely to get less subsidies with means testing but may find higher-class wards and private hospitals too expensive.

'It depends on how we define middle income,' he said. 'We have not decided where we should set the criteria.'

He added that he will hold public dialogues to get input from Singaporeans.

Overall, reducing the financial burden of health care is the major theme of projects in the pipeline for Mr Khaw this year.

He wants to increase the list of chronic diseases whose treatment can be paid for by the national health-care financing scheme, Medisave.

And, for large medical bills, he wants to reduce the sum that patients have to pay out of their pockets under the insurance scheme for major illnesses, Medishield, from the current 40 per cent to 20 per cent.

Another prominent target on Mr Khaw's road map is the growing number of elderly among Singapore's population.

'With ageing, you cannot avoid the rising need for patient care, so that is why we need to expand the hospitals and specialty centres,' he said.

Work is already underway to set up a new hospital in Yishun, and another in Jurong.

And specialty centres, for big killers such as cancer and heart disease, are also expanding to meet the health-care demands of an ageing population.

Besides the ageing population, another challenge for Mr Khaw is the demands of a better-educated population, where 'patients like to engage their doctors, ask a lot of questions'.

He said: 'So, even with the same number of patients, you need many more doctors, and therefore nurses and clinic support.

'The Ministry of Health will definitely pump in a lot more resources to cope with this ageing problem and changing expectations of Singaporeans.'

wycin@sph.com.sg