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SINGAPORE: It was recently announced that the Health Ministry is working on a pilot scheme with nursing homes to implement palliative care.
But are nursing homes, many of which are run by the voluntary welfare organisations, ready to take this on? Most of Singapore's 59 nursing homes rely on volunteer doctors.
Often, when patients suffer extreme pain, they are brought to the hospitals to die. The Health Ministry hopes to change this, by having nursing homes provide palliative care.
But some nursing homes say providing in-house medical expertise will be a key issue.
Maria Sim, administrator at Villa Francis Home, said: "We do not have a residential doctor. This is something that we will have to seriously look at, because if they (the patients) are going to be in-house, then we will have to have a doctor to review the cases daily. We would like to buy services, but is there a supply? Are there enough to go round?
"And, if it is a daily thing, then we also have to look at cost. Do we want to let the residents pay for the cost or are we going to absorb the cost of professional services, because they can be expensive. And most of the residents of the home, they are poor."
The government has said it will increase funding for palliative care but details have not been announced.
Furthermore, nurses will also need to be specially trained to care for dying patients, such as knowing how much morphine to dispense.
Susan Gui, director of nursing at Villa Francis Home, said: "They might have a lot of pain and also some of them may have big wounds....fungating wounds which need a lot of attention. For a lay person to see the wound, it is very gory for them. So you need nurses to be trained, or else it is very difficult for them."
The Health Ministry has said it will be training more doctors and nurses in palliative care, which is a relatively new discipline. With an ageing population, the hope is that more people can die in familiar settings such as the nursing home, where they have made friends and where some have come to regard staff as family.
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