Singapore Expats

Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Discuss the various Pediatrician, Obstetrician & Gynaecologist options here.
Post Reply
AussieMumma
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri, 20 Jul 2018 3:23 pm

Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by AussieMumma » Fri, 20 Jul 2018 10:25 pm

Need help quickly getting up to speed with how the health system works here regarding giving birth. I am almost 35 weeks pregnant and we just moved from UK to Singapore. I have pretty much fallen into Mt Elizabeth Novena and hope it’s a good hospital?

User avatar
PNGMK
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 9076
Joined: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 9:06 pm
Answers: 10
Location: Sinkapore

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by PNGMK » Fri, 27 Jul 2018 12:01 pm

I would not use that one as they almost killed a friend. Mt Elizabeth at Mt Elizabeth or GlenEagles if you want private but honestly KKH or NUH are the best. To put it frankly the shitty docs in this country go private, the good ones stay in NUH or SGH or KKH.
I not lawyer/teacher/CPA.
You've been arrested? Law Society of Singapore can provide referrals.
You want an International School job? School website or http://www.ISS.edu
Your rugrat needs a School? Avoid for profit schools
You need Tax advice? Ask a CPA
You ran away without doing NS? Shame on you!

AussieMumma
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 12
Joined: Fri, 20 Jul 2018 3:23 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by AussieMumma » Fri, 27 Jul 2018 2:44 pm

Thanks PNGMK. I think after having my last in UK where they didn’t even believe that I was in labour I might as well just birth at home now :o

User avatar
jnageb18
Member
Member
Posts: 31
Joined: Tue, 12 Jun 2018 6:00 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by jnageb18 » Fri, 27 Jul 2018 4:39 pm

take care Aussiemumma... and congrats on your new child!

Escapedprisoner
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 2:43 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by Escapedprisoner » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 4:04 pm

PNGMK wrote:I would not use that one as they almost killed a friend. Mt Elizabeth at Mt Elizabeth or GlenEagles if you want private but honestly KKH or NUH are the best. To put it frankly the shitty docs in this country go private, the good ones stay in NUH or SGH or KKH.
This would be a total lie, at best it’s an ignorant drivel spouted by non locals who lived somewhere for a few years and think they know it all.

Most of the doctors in our public hospitals are new and green.

To be able to practice as a specialist you need to go to a public hospital first for your residency and spend some years there most certainly as intern then resident.

Singapore’s private hospitals are for doctors who are already specialists.

That’s why you get all the freshies in public hospitals. Then they move to the private sector later.

There are senior docs in the public hospitals and they are generally no more skilled than the majority of their compatriots who leave for private practice for better working conditions.
Last edited by Escapedprisoner on Mon, 30 Jul 2018 4:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Escapedprisoner
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 2:43 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by Escapedprisoner » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 4:09 pm

Repeat post

User avatar
PNGMK
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 9076
Joined: Thu, 21 Mar 2013 9:06 pm
Answers: 10
Location: Sinkapore

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by PNGMK » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 6:00 pm

Escapedprisoner wrote:
PNGMK wrote:I would not use that one as they almost killed a friend. Mt Elizabeth at Mt Elizabeth or GlenEagles if you want private but honestly KKH or NUH are the best. To put it frankly the shitty docs in this country go private, the good ones stay in NUH or SGH or KKH.
This would be a total lie, at best it’s an ignorant drivel spouted by non locals who lived somewhere for a few years and think they know it all.

Most of the doctors in our public hospitals are new and green.

To be able to practice as a specialist you need to go to a public hospital first for your residency and spend some years there most certainly as intern then resident.

Singapore’s private hospitals are for doctors who are already specialists.

That’s why you get all the freshies in public hospitals. Then they move to the private sector later.

There are senior docs in the public hospitals and they are generally no more skilled than the majority of their compatriots who leave for private practice for better working conditions.

Bullshit mate. I've been a PR since 1994 and lived here since the 80s. I started using the public hospitals on the advice of my GP in the late 80's and have never regretted using NUH, KKH, TTSH or SGH but I have been screwed around and seen friends screwed around by the private hospitals multiple times. When I had an industrial accident I was in in NUH but when I had a nose broken I was in Mt E. I should have gone to NUH. My expat wife had major health issues and the only place we could get competent advice was NUH - the private place her insurance recommended her to was totally incompetent.

I know doctors on both sides personally. The drunk Indian who didn't want to be a doc but his dad made him is in Raffles, the dedicated guy who we completely trusted when my wife was dying on a stretcher is in KKH. Maybe a small sample size but it works for me.

There's a simple test. Have a heart attack or accident. Where do they take you? No where near Mt E or GlenEagles but to SGH or the Singapore Cardiac Centre or NUH....

To be more specific (and trying not to be sued) - there are specialists in the private system who would - in a litigious society - have been sued out of practice in my purely personal opinion based on friends dreadful experiences. They cannot pass scrutiny in the public system but they seem to be able to escape scrutiny and duck malpractice lawsuits in the private system.

Where should AussieMama have her baby? Yeah she'll be ok in GE or Mt E almost certainly, unless something goes really wrong and then she'll wish she was in KKH. Wishing her well.
I not lawyer/teacher/CPA.
You've been arrested? Law Society of Singapore can provide referrals.
You want an International School job? School website or http://www.ISS.edu
Your rugrat needs a School? Avoid for profit schools
You need Tax advice? Ask a CPA
You ran away without doing NS? Shame on you!

Escapedprisoner
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 2:43 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by Escapedprisoner » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 9:51 pm

:^o You have two sample sizes. Enough said.

What’s the odds of someone experienced but somehow incompetent? Slim but certainly possible. And it happened to you. You were suay. What’s the odds of someone green but performed satisfactorily and competent? Slim but also certainly possible.

All you are telling us is your own anecdotes which is just he says she says.

I’m telling AussieMamma facts. Facts about how the doctors in Singapore are trained, how they are rotated, etc. that’s a fact. Private specialists in Singapore either did their residencies overseas or in a public hospital in Singapore. Then they move to private hospital.

You can’t do your residency in a private hospital in SG, because there is no such thing in SG, it would be a mirage.
Last edited by Escapedprisoner on Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Escapedprisoner
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 2:43 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by Escapedprisoner » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:01 pm

Patients being taken to public hospitals by emergency ambulances HAS NOTHING to do with where the most skilled, the best, the most experienced, the most famous, where the top, the most glittered the biggest name surgeons and specialists practice in Singapore.

That’s because ambulances mostly take patients to the ER (u know that’s an ambulance’s job?) and the public hospitals have operating full fledged ER while private hospitals provide the set up (infrastructure, nurses) to specialists who are each considered a self-employed partner to the private hospitals. The private hospitals don’t employ the specialists. The specialists are considered self employed practice. Private hospitals in Singapore mostly do specialist business, specialist area of work specialist cases that’s their business model so they don’t do full scale ER, I thought you’re a “long time” resident of the island? You don’t know that?

What happens after u stabilize the patient in ER is another matter.

I can’t count the number of examples I know where people get stuck with poor treatment or almost died in public hospitals and only got saved after being treated by some top specialist in the private sector especially in mount Elizabeth Orchard and Gleneagles. Only the minority who are rich enough for this alternative sought it. Most people just die as they don’t have the finances to do the switch. There’s obviously no ramifications because how do you sue the government in an authoritarian state. So people assume it was inevitable lor. Normal passage of life.

Who can forget that time the host Andrea De Cruz almost died while in NUH and had to be transferred to Gleneagles for liver transplant and barely pulled through? All the top surgeons in SG are in private practice including the oncologist who cured LHL of his first cancer and the neurosurgeon who separated the conjoined twins back in the 90s. Oh they were in public hospital SGH at that time but OH MY how come they are all in Mount E now?? Because that’s the standard movement and progression of this country!

And we are just talking about rather common issues like cancer or cardiac arrest. If we venture into the realm of diseases of rarity, you can find ZERO expertise of that in public hospitals in SG.

User avatar
sundaymorningstaple
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 40376
Joined: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 1:26 pm
Answers: 21
Location: Retired on the Little Red Dot

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:24 pm

You forgot to mention that those same specialists who maintain their offices in the private hospitals also do rounds one or two days a week in the public hospitals. I know this for fact as when my wife had her heart attack about 8 years ago, she was attended to by the son of the most famous Father & Son Cardiologist teams in Singapore (based at Mt. Elizabeth). He also attended to her in SGH for two stents in later years. In the 1980's, if you were a pregnant female and had problems (regardless of a private or public hospital), you would be shipped over to the old KK hospital. My first child was delivered at the old KK hospital by arguably, the most famous gynae in Singapore. Dr. S Shan Ratnam, who was also the pioneer of gender reassignment surgery in Asia (1974). (who passed away in 2001).

The reason they congregate at Mount E is because the hospital caters primarily to the Middle-Eastern and African Warlord traffic who can afford to pay rediculous rates. Not that they are any better, just maybe better connected.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

Escapedprisoner
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 2:43 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by Escapedprisoner » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:26 pm

PNGMK wrote: To be more specific (and trying not to be sued) - there are specialists in the private system who would - in a litigious society - have been sued out of practice in my purely personal opinion based on friends dreadful experiences. They cannot pass scrutiny in the public system but they seem to be able to escape scrutiny and duck malpractice lawsuits in the private system.

Where should AussieMama have her baby? Yeah she'll be ok in GE or Mt E almost certainly, unless something goes really wrong and then she'll wish she was in KKH. Wishing her well.
The fact that you say ”They cannot pass scrutiny in the public system but they seem to be able to escape scrutiny and duck malpractice lawsuits in the private system” shows that you don’t know anything of how SG works yet you brag about living in SG since the 90s? Try to claim you know SG systems better than locals?! Lol.

Those same doctors you said “cannot pass scrutiny in the public system” performed their residency in the public system. They were TRAINED by the public system that you think is so good.

First you tried to say they couldn’t pass the public system (you didn’t know they had to do residency there) so I thought you would say they somehow passed the scrutiny of the private system due to laxness but you later admitted they also did not get sued in the private system! I thought you were gonna say docs in public system don’t get sued so they are good and docs in the private system get sued so they are no good. But you strangely then said they also don’t get sued in the private system. How about that Singaporeans generally just don’t have the money to sue too often? Since cock-ups happen to say, at most 1-2 in say, 100 patients, all you need is for that 1-2 patient not have the money or the guts to sue then you wouldn’t have a lawsuit.

Public hospitals don’t get sued by commoners because Singapore is the same state that sent teenagers to prison for speech on YouTube. Clear enough for you??

How come u lived in SG since the 90s, but don’t seem to know much huh
Last edited by Escapedprisoner on Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Escapedprisoner
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 2:43 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by Escapedprisoner » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:33 pm

sundaymorningstaple wrote:You forgot to mention that those same specialists who maintain their offices in the private hospitals also do rounds one or two days a week in the public hospitals. I know this for fact as when my wife had her heart attack about 8 years ago, she was attended to by the son of the most famous Father & Son Cardiologist teams in Singapore (based at Mt. Elizabeth). He also attended to her in SGH for two stents in later years. In the 1980's, if you were a pregnant female and had problems (regardless of a private or public hospital), you would be shipped over to the old KK hospital. My first child was delivered at the old KK hospital by arguably, the most famous gynae in Singapore. Dr. S Shan Ratnam, who was also the pioneer of gender reassignment surgery in Asia (1974). (who passed away in 2001).

The reason they congregate at Mount E is because the hospital caters primarily to the Middle-Eastern and African Warlord traffic who can afford to pay rediculous rates. Not that they are any better, just maybe better connected.
I am aware of local top specialists who do volunteer duty once in two weeks or so in public hospitals. They do so out of altruism and they are also a tiny fraction of the top private specialists thanks for bolstering my original point. That all doctors in Sg with accrued experience transit to private. So you can try to save money and go to a public hospital and secretly hope and pray that you get attended to by one of the charity docs doing charity work once a month or whatever.

The African warlords or Myanmar junta whatever are just a tiny fraction. Majority of Mount E patients are ethnic Chinese from Indonesia and wealthy locals. Walk through the building you’ll hear Indonesian language freely by passers-by but yes all Chinese faces. The rich Chinese locals also go there. Also middle class locals covered by their iron clad insurance. The top most famous specialists congregate in Mount E because private practice pays more so the doctors after gaining experience become private to earn much more. It’s about the dollars. Just like in any other country.

Mount E and Gleneagles and East Shore were started by homegrown Parkway group and it was the first private hospital group with massive resources that’s why all the famous specialists are in Mount E. It’s like working in Google if you are in tech. Same thing. As simple as that. The old Mount E Orchard building has been there since the 1970s. It houses the most experienced specialists in Singapore. Same as Gleneagles. There are obstetricians in Gleneagles who delivered babies for Chinese Singaporeans families three generations of the women in the same family from the early 80s.

By the way Parkway was later acquired by the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.

User avatar
sundaymorningstaple
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 40376
Joined: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 1:26 pm
Answers: 21
Location: Retired on the Little Red Dot

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:49 pm

Sorry to piss on your parade, but I certainly wasn't a charity case, and in the case of both my 1st born's birth and my wife's cardiologist, they were contacted by us via recommendation of another of their patients. They also had no problems that we opted for public hospitals. Apparently a lot of the patients opt for the public hospitals as the vast majority of "specialists" with upmarket addresses almost always remember where they came from. They also know it is silly to spend a fortune for a 5* hospital room when a 3* has all the same amenities and the specialist will come just like they would at the private hospital. But by having their clinics there allows them to charge higher prices due to the surroundings. Doesn't make you a better doctor though, just more mercenary in a lot of cases.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

Escapedprisoner
Newbie
Newbie
Posts: 17
Joined: Mon, 30 Jul 2018 2:43 pm

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by Escapedprisoner » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 10:56 pm

sundaymorningstaple wrote:Sorry to piss on your parade, but I certainly wasn't a charity case, and in the case of both my 1st born's birth and my wife's cardiologist, they were contacted by us via recommendation of another of their patients. They also had no problems that we opted for public hospitals. Apparently a lot of the patients opt for the public hospitals as the vast majority of "specialists" with upmarket addresses almost always remember where they came from. They also know it is silly to spend a fortune for a 5* hospital room when a 3* has all the same amenities and the specialist will come just like they would at the private hospital. But by having their clinics there allows them to charge higher prices due to the surroundings. Doesn't make you a better doctor though, just more mercenary in a lot of cases.
Sorry your feelings were hurt that I said the renowned private doctor that attended to u on their volunteer public service duty once a month made you a “charity case”. You yourself said that famous surgeon was in private practice and was helping out in no more than 10% of his billing hours in the public hospital doing his charity work his main job is his private practice. You received a tip off and you contacted him. We got the story.

As long as Aussiemama knows what is going on here and everything I’ve said it’s good enough. :D no need to say so much.

User avatar
sundaymorningstaple
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 40376
Joined: Thu, 11 Nov 2004 1:26 pm
Answers: 21
Location: Retired on the Little Red Dot

Re: Just landed and 34 weeks pregnant!

Post by sundaymorningstaple » Mon, 30 Jul 2018 11:01 pm

What Aussiemama should know is that she should just go to KK Womens' & Children's hospital and be done with it.
SOME PEOPLE TRY TO TURN BACK THEIR ODOMETERS. NOT ME. I WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW WHY I LOOK THIS WAY. I'VE TRAVELED A LONG WAY, AND SOME OF THE ROADS WEREN'T PAVED. ~ Will Rogers

Post Reply
  • Similar Topics
    Replies
    Views
    Last post

Return to “Pediatrician, Obstetrician & Gynaecologist”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest