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Private homes to bid for patients
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| Salma Khalik |
Sat, Feb 23, 2008
The Straits Times
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NURSING homes run by volunteers versus private ones run for profit: Which are better and more cost-efficient?
To find out, the Health Ministry has asked private homes to do some number crunching and state the amount of subsidies they will need in order to take in up to 500 fairly incapacitated patients.
The amount they ask for and the corresponding level of care they can provide may become the new benchmark for nursing homes receiving government subsidies in future.
The patients they will be asked to house are either wheelchair-bound or bedridden.
| It will be in the interest of these homes, which run about 40 per cent of the 8,500 available beds, to bid for these patients as they now have almost 1,000 unused beds in total.
Once a bid offered by a private home is accepted by the ministry, it will be held to those numbers for two years from this July.
A ministry spokesman said she hoped that private nursing homes would put in attractive bids, since their empty beds were adding to their costs. Taking in subsidised patients with the Government footing the bulk of the bill would therefore be in their interest.
Mr Ong Chu Poh, the managing director of China Healthcare, which runs six facilities, said he was interested in the idea and that he saw it as a chance to do his bit to help less well-off patients.
China Healthcare runs four medicare centres and two nursing homes and has another home in the pipeline. It is running at a comfortable 75 per cent occupancy.
The ministry said yesterday: 'Through this competitive, market-based system, we hope to get the best performance and value when allocating subsidised beds to existing or new providers.'
It added that the exercise would improve consistency in patient care and 'facilitate healthy competition between providers'.
The charity homes run by volunteers also have several hundred vacancies. This move by the ministry could see even more empty beds there, if private homes start taking in subsidised patients.
The standard of nursing care and the fees patients pay vary greatly even in these charity-run homes which house the majority of the elderly poor. They charge from $200 to over $2,000 a month. Rates in the private sector start at under $2,000 and go beyond $4,000 a month.
The ministry's decision will hinge on cost and the standard of service and clinical care given. It will hold a briefing on Monday for interested parties.
salma@sph.com.sg
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