SINGAPORE – Shipyard engineer Jaime Mendoza, 57, suffered a stroke in September 2020.
The stroke affected his brain and his ability to breathe, so Mr Mendoza was given a tracheostomy, where a tube is inserted into his windpipe to allow air into his lungs. He was kept in the intensive care unit (ICU) for about a month before he was moved to the general ward.
The family had been out celebrating his daughter’s birthday when he suddenly felt unwell and was hurried by taxi to the emergency department of Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH).
“He was in (the) hospital for the next three months. He came home for a month before being hospitalised at the Ang Mo Kio Rehabilitation Centre from March till May 2021,” his wife, Mrs Edna Mendoza, 57, told The Straits Times.
His seven-month stay, first at TTSH and then at the rehabilitation centre, would have been cut by close to three months – or an average of 81 days for such patients – if he had been taken directly from the ICU to the Ventilatory Rehabilitation Unit (VRU).
Patients with conditions and injuries that affect breathing, such as head injury, stroke, lung diseases, heart attack, pneumonia and spinal cord injuries, would do better when they are moved directly from the ICU to a specialised rehabilitation unit once their underlying conditions are stable, said Dr Lui Wen Li, a consultant with the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at TTSH.
“In 2019, the average stay in hospital for patients needing ventilators to breathe was more than 200 days. We realised that rehabilitation is not the main focus of acute (care) hospitals.
“They cater more to managing the acute medical and surgical issues rather than specialised rehabilitation. Often, patients are not able to work towards improvement in speech, mobility and swallowing,” she said.
In 2020, the rehabilitation medicine team started a pilot programme at the Ang Mo Kio Rehabilitation Centre to provide specialised, intensive and advanced service to wean patients off their reliance on ventilators early and restore them to health.
