Australia is not the only country facing serious issues about how to manage its elderly, and the impact of the coming tsunami on our whole health sector, said Jason Falinski, managing director of CareWell Health.
SINGAPORE: The Health Ministry will undertake a holistic review of the various systems and processes currently in place at nursing homes, said Health Minister Gan Kim Yong.
This is to see if there is room for improvement and to prevent a recurrence of the recent abuse of a patient at the Nightingale Nursing Home.
Mr Gan was speaking to reporters after attending a dengue exhibition on Saturday.
A video, which showed Nightingale Nursing Home staff flinging a elderly woman onto a bed and slapping her on the mouth to keep her quiet, sparked an uproar among many Singaporeans, who expressed shock at the treatment of the patient at the nursing home.
The ministry said it takes a serious view of such incidents and will review the governance of nursing homes.
Mr Gan said: "From the MOH point of view, it's important for us to learn from this incident and that's why we'll take a holistic review on the various measures that we've put in place to see whether we can improve on the system, the surveillance or monitoring system, as well as how we can work closer with the nursing homes to advise them, to help them to put in place necessary measures to ensure that such incidents don't happen in the future."
Mr Gan was also sorry about what had happened.
He said: "I like to apologise to the family who have seen their mother subjected to the treatment at Nightingale Nursing Home. Such lapses are of grave concern to us."
And that is why the ministry suspended the nursing home since April, even as investigations were ongoing, said Mr Gan.
Mr Gan said that the "nursing home is now under surveillance and monitoring by the ministry" and that the ministry will "watch how the nursing home progresses from this point onwards." The ministry will also step up surveillance on the nursing home for a period of time.
With regard to the two staff members involved, he said one has left the nursing home, while the other was given a warning.
Mr Gan said the incident has been a learning lesson for his ministry, but assured Singaporeans that most nursing homes are safe with many measures to ensure proper care of patients.
The ministry is also grateful to MediaCorp for highlighting the situation, which allowed a full and proper investigation to be carried out.
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