A well-known Vietnamese artist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a computed tomography (CT) scan cost him nearly SGD1,200 (US$850) at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital, while the Singapore General Hospital only charges around SGD507 ($359).
According to the artist, he was introduced by the director of a Ho Chi Minh City-based heath center to visit Mount Elizabeth Hospital for treatment at the end of last year.
But he told Thanh Nien that after undergoing some tests at this hospital, a fellow Vietnamese advised him to use the cheaper services of Singapore General Hospital.
Two months ago, a family who also asked not to be named took their two-year-old child to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital after being referred by the same health agency director.
After reviewing an X-ray of the child which had been taken in Vietnam, a doctor said she had osteitis and needed to be hospitalized immediately.
The doctor then went on to prescribe a treatment plan to cure the girl over a period of two weeks.
Feeling uneasy with the hasty examination and treatment plan, the child’s family contacted a friend in Singapore and left the hospital immediately.
She was subsequently taken to the National University Hospital, where a doctor concluded she was potentially suffering from neuroblastoma – a tumor of embryonic nerve cells.
The examination fee at the second hospital was SGD92 ($65), much lower than the charge of SGD159 ($112) at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital. The latter doctor also said a treatment plan for this patient could only be devised after she undergoes a CT scan and several other tests.
The girl is currently still in Singapore undergoing chemotherapy for the neuroblastoma at the National University Hospital.
In early August, Vietnamese patient Nguyen Van Loc from southern Dong Nai Province informed Thanh Nien that he had requested Mount Elizabeth Hospital to compensate him for the extra fees he paid for the treatment of an intestinal leak that was accidentally caused during treatment for his liver tumor.
Loc said the hospital has yet to return the disputed sum of SGD60,000 ($42,500) even though he had issued several requests over a period of nearly a year.
The Mount Elizabeth Hospital belongs to ParkwayHealth, whose network include 14 hospitals in countries including Brunei, India, Malaysia and Singapore.
Reported by Thuc Minh (from Singapore) |
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