HEALTH CARE SERVICES IN SINGAPORE

Issues in Health Care Services

Self-reliance
- Medisave and Medishield schemes

Medical care for the Lower-Income Group
- Class C wards
- Medifund Scheme

Medical care for Senior Citizens
- many helping hands approach (community hospitals, nursing homes, day care centers)
- provision of grants to voluntary welfare organization
- MOH’s disease prevention and health education programs

Healthy Lifestyle
- National Healthy Lifestyle Campaign
- ACES day
- Health exhibitions and advertisements

THE WELFARE STATE OF BRITAIN

Means of Achieving the Welfare State

Nationalization of Utilities and Industries
- Taking over of the management of public utilities by the British government
- Running of these industries to ensure affordable service and population welfare

Provision of Social Welfare
- Payment of welfare benefits to poor citizens to help meet daily expenses

Provision of Health and Medical Care
- National Health Service to provide free medical etc. treatments
- Money for the services to be provided by taxes and worker insurance payments

Problems of the Welfare State

Low Efficiency
- Profit making was not a consideration for workers in government-owned companies
- Companies operated at a loss
- Large amounts of money from the government had to be channeled to prevent bankruptcy
- Inadequate numbers of health workers to provide for the large numbers of patients
- Well-off patients chose the private wards
- Poor people had to wait for a long time for wards under the NHS due to the large demand for non-urgent treatments

Increase in Government Spending
- Doctors freely used medical treatment with no consideration for costs
- Large numbers of patients demanding free medical care

The ‘Why Work’ Attitude
- Indifferent attitude towards works and personal responsibility
- Little or no motivation for the poor to work

Businesses Driven Away
- Heavy taxes resulting in low motivation to invest in the country