Free clinics to charge higher registration fee

SINGAPORE: Patients will now have to pay a higher registration fee when they visit free clinics.

These clinics told Channel NewsAsia that they have been forced to increase fee, to defray higher operating costs, inflation, and the rising cost of medicine.

The free clinics are also receiving fewer donations.

In the past two years, Chung Hwa Medical Institution’s annual expenses have gone up by S$2 million.

To cope, it has raised patients’ registration fee to S$3 — up by S$1.

The Free Clinic Public Society has also raised fee by fifty cents.

It is hoping for more donations to roll in from the public, to cover the cost of its new clinic.

Public Free Clinic Society’s president Seow Ser Fatt said: "We’re still short of S$50,000, based on donations collected from January to June this year. Two years ago, the economy was good. We could easily raise S$900,000 in just one to two months."

— CNA/ck