|
CPF Medisave and MediShield schemes help Mr Edwin Gunasegaran pay for his operation and dialysis treatment
 WHEN Mr Edwin Gunasegaran’s doctor told him 13 years ago that he needed to have an operation and prepare for dialysis to stay alive, his mind went blank and everything came crashing down.
“I thought my life was over,” says Mr Gunasegaran, recalling that day when he was diagnosed with hypertension.
The ailment had caused Mr Gunasegaran’s blood pressure to rise and his kidney to fail. This landed him in the Singapore General Hospital one day while at work.
Mr Gunasegaran, now 50, was then at the prime of his life. He was doing well as a technician for a Swedish company and drawing a good salary.
He had just made the down payment for a four-room HDB flat in Lorong Ah Soo, and his wife was expecting their second child. The financial burden of supporting his new and expanding family was heavy enough.
He says: “How am I going to provide for my children? How am I going to work? How to pay for my HDB? Will the company still want to hire me?”
Mr Gunasegaran was worried that he could not afford the operation.
“I was so depressed,” he adds.
It was only after the hospital told him that his Medisave would cover the entire cost of his operation and hospital bill that he accepted the doctor’s recommended treatment.
Three weeks later, Mr Gunasegaran was discharged from the hospital, without having to pay a single cent for his $9,000 hospital bill, which included his medication.
“Everything was automatically deducted from my Medisave,” he says. “I didn’t even have to see anyone or clear any paper work. It was all done for me.”
But Mr Gunasegaran’s financial worries were not over. He had to go for regular dialysis treatment, which would cost $1,008 a month.
To make matters worse, he lost his well-paying job at the Swedish company as a result of his health and had to take up a new job as a relief security guard. This earned him only $600 to $700 a month.
He decided to sell his four-room flat and downgrade to a three-room flat in Serangoon, but he still could not afford the cost of his dialysis treatment.
Fortunately for Mr Gunasegaran, MediShield covers more than 99 per cent of his dialysis treatment at the National Kidney Foundation. With this coverage, he pays only about $50 a month for his medicine and the remaining cost of his dialysis treatment.
“If not for MediShield, I would be dead already,” says Mr Gunasegaran. “I would not be able to afford the medicine I need to keep me alive if MediShield doesn’t cover the cost for me.”
After 13 years of treatment, Mr Gunasegaran says life is tough but it is more bearable because he does not have to worry about the health-care costs. But his wife has to supplement the family’s income by working at her sister’s company as a clerk on an ad hoc basis.
Mr Gunasegaran, who works on alternate weekdays and on weekends on 12-hour shifts, regrets that he is not able to spend more time with his 18-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter.
But he adds: “At least I am alive to see my children grow up.”
Medisave and MediShield
Medisave is the national savings scheme under CPF which helps individuals to put aside part of their income in their Medisave Accounts to pay for their personal or dependants’ hospitalisation expenses.
It can also be used to buy MediShield for CPF members and their dependants. It can be used to pay for certain outpatient treatment expenses such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Higher coverage for hospitalisation expenses (enhancement plans) can also be purchased from an approved private insurer by using Medisave.
MediShield is a medical insurance designed to help Singaporeans pay part of large hospitalisation bills for treatment of serious illnesses or prolonged hospitalisations at Class B2/C wards in restructured hospitals.
MediShield covers hospitalisation expenses and certain approved outpatient treatments, such as kidney dialysis, chemotherapy and radiotherapy for cancer treatment. CPF members and their dependants who are Singaporeans or SingaporePermanent Residents can be covered under MediShield up to 85 years old.
As as March 31, the number of people covered under MediShield is 3,318,438.
Actuaries from Deloitte have been advising the CPF Board on MediShield for nearly 10 years. In that time they have worked regularly with the Board and the Ministry of Health to keep MediShield’s benefits up to date, with two big changes occurring in 2005 and 2008.
Another core duty for Deloitte as the actuary to MediShield is to advise the CPF Board each year on the scheme’s solvency, to ensure that members’ benefits have the highest security.
“Integrating MediShield back in 2005 with the Shield insurance plans issued by life insurers was a major step towards allowing Singaporeans a real freedom of choice in their health insurance coverage,” says Mr Stuart Rodger, the Deloitte partner, who leads the MediShield actuarial team.
“Behind the scenes, the CPF Board does a great deal of work with the insurers to make sure that the paperwork and administration for members of these plans is kept really simple. I hope that the general public appreciates this.”
|