The Department of Medical Social Services (MSS) at Sengkang General Hospital aims to provide excellent care and service by providing timely psychosocial intervention to support patients and their families.
The department works collaboratively with multidisciplinary team of doctors, nurses, therapists, community partners and external organizations to formulate care strategies to help facilitate patients' coping, recovery, and extending assistance to those in their greatest needs. The department's greater aim is to empower individuals and build their resilience to cope with their medical conditions and related psychosocial problems.
Care assessment and planning
MSWs play an important role in assessing patients' care needs and provide necessary support, information, and referrals to relevant external agencies. Together with the hospital's multi-disciplinary team, the objective is to ensure a smooth transition when patients return home and are supported by community partners to ensure a continuation of care.
Financial assessment and intervention
Medical cost and treatment affordability is a common concern among many patients. In addition to assistance schemes such as Medifund, they also link patients facing financial difficulty to other external organizations for support.
Risk assessment and support
MSWs provide risk assessment, safety planning and emotional support to patients and their families that face issues of violence, abuse, assault and traumatic incidents. This includes support for those who have been physically and/or sexually assaulted, and survivors of family violence and traumatic accident.
Psycho-emotional support
The department provides counselling and psycho-emotional support to patients and their families who might be facing a myriad of psycho-emotional issues such as coping with illness, the motivation for behaviour change, grief and loss, bereavement, and other emotional distress.
Networking and collaboration
MSWs often collaborate with government institutions, Voluntary Welfare Organization (VWOs) and other community partners to develop prevention strategies and intervention programmes that aim to tackle challenging social issues within the community.
Education & Research
The department provides training in the following areas:
Attending and communication skills for healthcare workers
Coping with grief, loss and bereavement
Advance Care Planning.
Social and financial resources related to healthcare
In addition, the department is involved in Quality Improvement and other research projects.
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