When it comes to medical care and state-of-the-art facilities, we often take pride in the fact that Singapore has one of the best healthcare systems in the world.
And so, when her toddler fell sick with high fever and febrile fits when in Malaysia, his mummy Mdm Teoh rushed back to Singapore.
What was to happen later, however, eroded her trust in Singapore hospitals and healthcare providers.
Expired formula milk given in Singapore hospital
Mdm Teoh recently took to Facebook to share about the incident. She wrote, ""A" had a case of high fever and febrile fit during a family event in Malaysia."
Having more faith in Singapore’s healthcare providers, she rushed to have him admitted into a well-known hospital in Singapore on 17 Feb, 2018.
Soon however, the 2-year-old started having diarrhoea.
Mdm Teoh tells theAsianparent, "He didn't have diarrhoea before admission."
She tells us that the hospital had earlier provided them with formula milk satchets to give the child. "After my baby had diarrhoea, we traced back and checked the remaining milk sachets. The whole batch had expired in 2017!"
Shockingly, the immediate reaction from the hospital on the expired formula milk was, "to assure me that the milk was fit for consumption despite its expiry."
Mdm Teoh elaborates on Facebook, "However, A went on to experience diarrhoea throughout his entire stay. He was only given charcoal pills which had limited effect in easing his discomfort. No probiotics were given."
"Priority was instead given to testing his stool in what I can only assume was meant to avoid responsibility from providing an expired product."
Hospital refuses to take blame?
"We have incurred close to $3K on laboratory tests (alone) and the conclusion was there was no virus or bacteria detected from the stool. Thus the diarrhoea was the result of consumption of expired milk."
Mdm Teoh tells us, "The hospital, however insists that the diarrhoea was not a result of expired milk. Despite test results showing no virus or bacteria."
Eventually, the hospital offered a small amount as compensation.
"Finally, to trivialize the matter, a compensation of S$500 (a small fraction of the stool test’s cost) was proposed which we did not accept."
"I am appalled by the blame culture that is evident in our experience and efforts taken to conceal information from patients. This is supposed to be the "Best" hospital in Singapore but we had a terrible experience."
We totally empathise with you, mummy. And we are relieved that little "A" did not get seriously ill, and recovered soon.
theAsianparent has reached out to the hospital in question about the expired formula milk and is awaiting their official response on the incident.
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