Growing old with grace

With the United Nations estimating that by 2050, as much as 60 per cent of the world’s population aged 65 and above will be in Asia, nations in the region are having to look forward to the inevitable strains that will be placed on their health delivery systems.

Hardly surprisingly then that designing a healthcare system that will adequately support the elderly was the main agenda item at the fourth Asean Symposium on Access to Healthcare held recently by Philips Healthcare in Manila.

As in Thailand, many Filipinos can’t afford to pay for medical treatment, choosing instead to buy medicines from drugstores rather than go to a hospital when they fall sick. This situation is compounded by the ever-increasing price in access to healthcare, which has seen dramatic leaps thanks to advances in medical technology.

Dr Vichai Tienthavorn, Thailand’s vice minister of Public Health and the keynote speaker at the symposium, praised the kingdom’s Bt30 universal health scheme and offered it up as a model of how to ensure everyone could reach the healthcare system.

Many delegates expressed the need to make healthcare more affordable, which includes asking doctors not to rely so much on technology even it does help medical professionals diagnose conditions more correctly. 

They pointed out that a conventional diagnosis by a doctor can also be precise and is sometimes better than waiting for a digital result. Esther Go, director and president of the Philippine’s Medilink Network Company pointed out that people should be more actively encouraged to adopt healthier lifestyles too, which would save them the headaches of high hospital bills.

Philips Healthcare Solutions, which provides medical machinery ranging from the digital mammogram to the PET Scan undertook to work closely with its partners - the new National Kidney and Transplant Institute (NKTI) and St Luke’s Medical Centre (SLMC) in the Philippines – to use the technology more effectively, thus cutting costs.

Thailand's National Health Security Office (NHSO) has calculated that the country will have 20 million elderly people in the next 40 years and that healthcare spending on the elderly will rise from 34 per cent to 37 per cent of the total expenditure on healthcare in the next decade, due mainly to the increase in the price of medication and medical equipment.

Wayne Spittle, senior vice-president and CEO of Philips Healthcare for Asia Pacific says medical technology will play a greater role in helping doctors and hospitals work with the elderly more efficiently while allowing them to stay at home.

He cites as an example Philips’ Lifeline healthcare system, which already permits many old people in the US to remotely communicate with their caregivers, doctors and hospital the moment they have a health problem.

It’s a system that is suited to developed countries where children don’t take care of the elders, a situation that’s reflected through the average length of stay by an old person in hospital. In Thailand, that’s three to four days; in Japan, it reaches 35 days.

And lower inpatient stays also shapes the picture of the future hospital for Spittle himself.

“My future hospital will have outpatients driving the system and ready for emergency cases from accidents. Though chronic disease will kill more people, we can manage those people (including elderly) at home rather than packed in the hospital,” says Spittle. He adds that the technology will serve this model through Bluetooth, Internet and inventive medical gadget that allow patients to connect immediately and in real time with the hospitals and doctors.

The ASEAN symposium was held previously in previously held in Vietnam and Indonesia and Thailand is scheduled to be next year’s host. 

 

 

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_ Samitivej Srinakarin hospital waives doctor’s fees on six diseases caused by the flood situation until the end of this year.

_ The diseases include dengue fever, leptospirosis, hepatitis A, cholera and typhoid.

_ The hospital will waive the doctor’s and outpatient’s fee for patients diagnosed with these diseases. Patients will pay only for lab tests and medication.

_ The hospital also offers a 50-per-cent discount on rooms and 20-per-cent discount on medication and lab charges for inpatient.

_ Call (02) 378 9000.