Letter to Health Minister
- Diagnosis
- 2 years of trying
- Experience in private care and public care
- How this has made me feel:
Emotionally, relative to society, relative to Singapore (discrimination against those not having children). One drawback of living in family-friendly Singapore, is that within or even tax system, I find myself frequently reminded
- I believe that both, in fact, all of my doctors have had the best intentions for my care and have done the best they could do within the circumstances. However, there have been several shortcomings...
- Few options for egg donation, egg bank in Singapore, surrogacy, adoption.
- I want to write to him because I feel I have a coherent, rational and perspective on the experience of infertility in Singapore and I want to contribute to the ways to improve this. Want to be part of the conversation, given the hindsight of my experience.
- Infertility is a growing problem. Alternative therapies and families are going to become more the norm as society progresses.
- OLR
What we would like him to do:
1. Reconsider the gap between private and public care government co-payment in the following ways:
(a) Allow more treatment protocols to be practiced at public hospitals. Fertility treatment is a highly individualised process and requires specific treatment. It is archaic to use only one medical protocol per hospital, depending on the head doctor.
(b) Narrow the gap between private (0) and public care government co-payment.
(c) Allow for government co-payment to be used for medicines, not consultations or operating theatre charges at private hospitals.
2. Support OLR, involve OLR in discussions, conversations about infertility, healthcare institutions for fertility, and alternative family process surrogacy, egg freezing etc.
3. Consider more support for women undergoing fertility treatment, in the following ways:
(a) Increase the Medisave payment amount?
(b) Allow for out of pocket medical expenses to be a tax relief from earned income, in the same way that parent, working mother and childcare related relief are all substantial.
(c) Reconsider the gap between private and public care government for fertility.
4. Look into regulating adoption agencies, and having community services play the role of agency rather than private agents.
