ENTERING Ward 46A at the Singapore General Hospital takes a bit of doing.
Visitors to Singapore's only eating disorder treatment ward must navigate a maze on the sixth floor of Block 4, before reaching the ward tucked away in a corner.
Bags and pockets are checked to ensure no one is sneaking in food, as patients are on strict dietary and weight-monitoring regimes.
Once inside, the silent presence of painfully thin, pale girls greets you. Each sub-ward houses about five to six patients.
The days are not regimented except for two things - dreaded by patients - meal and supplement times.
'They are the most stressful parts of the day,' said 14-year-old Michelle (not her real name), whose mother had her discharged after a three-week-long stay.
Patients said they get an hour to finish their food. Nurses peer at plates and bowls and if they leave so much as a piece of chicken fat or rice grain, the meal is marked as 'incomplete'.
That spells trouble for patients as it means they will have to swallow one more supplement on top of the three they take a day.
Desperate means
NURSES readily admit they have become stricter and craftier over the years as they try to keep up with the girls' creative ways of making food disappear.
Some patients throw up right after a meal, shovel food into their hospital gown pockets or even hide it between their sheets.
'We used to allow them to toast food, but they would just burn it deliberately,' said one nurse.
But hunger fuels their creative juices. The girls say they compete to see who succeeds in not gaining weight as the days go by.
Lynette (not her real name), 13, even did star jumps in the shower to try to burn off calories. She was caught and doctors apparently ordered Complete Rest In Bed (Crib) for the four girls in the sub-ward.
That meant they could not shower or use the bathroom for days on end. All bowel movements are done using a bed pan.
Even standing on the bed is banned.
For their own good
SUCH methods prompted Michelle's mum, a 43-year-old home tutor, to write to the Singapore Children's Society and The Sunday Times describing them as 'sadistic, inhumane and humiliating'.
The senior consultant psychiatrist and director of SGH's programme, Dr Lee Ee Lian, said Crib is meant to be 'life-saving and curative, not punitive'.
Defiant but dangerously sick patients who refuse to eat sometimes have to be strapped down or force-fed through a tube, say doctors.
A specialist at Adam Road Hospital, Dr Ken Ung, said: 'Such treatment methods are primitive. But they have worked.'
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