Hospitals' A&E departments seeing high number of patients who do not need emergency care: MOH

SINGAPORE — Hospitals are currently seeing a high number of patients at their emergency departments, resulting in long queues and waiting times, and most of these patients did not require emergency care, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Sunday (Feb 6).

Unnecessary visits to hospital emergency departments risk compromising the standard of care for other patients who genuinely require emergency medical care, the ministry added.

MOH advised the public to seek medical treatment at a hospital’s emergency department only for serious or life-threatening emergencies, such as chest pain, breathlessness and uncontrollable bleeding.

“This allows those with severe illness in need of emergency care to be attended to quickly. It also helps to preserve our hospital capacity for those who truly need acute hospital care,” added the ministry.

The children’s emergency departments at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital and National University Hospital have experienced very high attendances over the past two weeks.

MOH said there were on average more than 650 cases per day across both children’s emergency departments this week, up from an average of 450 cases per day in early January.

About 80 per cent of the patients, including those with Covid-19 infections, presented with mild symptoms, did not require hospitalisation, and were discharged after their emergency department visits.

“Amongst paediatric patients who were admitted, most did not stay long in hospital, and were discharged on average within two to three days. The proportion of severe Covid-19 infections and Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in Children remains low, at less than one out of 1,000 paediatric cases,” said MOH.

“We urge members of the public, including children, to visit their general practitioners or a 24-hour clinic for non-emergencies.”

Should individuals require Covid-19 testing or review for symptoms of acute respiratory infection, they can visit Public Health Preparedness Clinics for further assessment. More than 700 of such clinics are open after office hours on selected days, said MOH.

There are also six paediatric swab centres which support paediatric swabs for children aged six and below, of which four are open after office hours on selected days.

They are: Thomson Medical Centre’s 24-hour Family Clinic, Raffles Specialists at Raffles Holland V, Raffles Children's Centre at Tampines One, Raffles Juniors at Waterway Point as well as Thomson Paediatric Centre at JEM and Serangoon Central.

Children aged five and above can also be swabbed at Urgent Care Centre (Woodlands Health). 

The latest list of general practitioner clinics and their operating hours can be found at the Health Ministry's website, the Agency for Integrated Care’s website, the Community Health Assist Scheme webpage and the HealthHub mobile application. CNA

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