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Hep C-related communication must be made public: Chee Soon Juan

Chee Soon Juan, Secretary-General of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party, speaks to his supporters at Chua Chu Kang stadium during a rally ahead of Singapore's September 11 election, on September 3, 2015

Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan has called for a "full and complete release" of all information relating to the Hepatitis C outbreak, including official correspondence such as emails and memos to address unanswered questions about the timeline of events.

This follows a letter to The Straits Forum by Health Minister Gan Kim Yong's press secretary Lim Bee Khim, which stated that Gan was only informed of the outbreak on 18 September. The letter was a response to a Sunday Times commentary which questioned if there were political motivations behind the timing of the release of the information.

Twenty-two kidney patients who were hospitalised from April to June were infected with Hep C during their stay. Eight patients died, with five deaths possibly linked to the virus. Almost 1,000 patients have also been screened for the disease. The Health Ministry has since reported the matter to the police, in order to ascertain if there was any foul play.

In a media statement on Wednesday (21 Oct), Chee questioned why health agency officials took so long to inform MOH of the outbreak, when under the Infectious Diseases Act, health officials were legally obliged to do so within 72 hours. Chee further charged that "poor management of the outbreak" had resulted in "several deaths and infections".

Chee called for the release of all related information to answer questions about how the episode was managed – information such as communication between the Prime Minister and the Health Minister relating to the outbreak, as well as anonymised information on each patient about his or her probable exposure and date of detection of infection.

He added, "As the one in charge of his Ministry, Mr Gan must accept responsibility for the breach in patient safety rather than issue statements through his press secretary scolding people who ask questions of public interest."