Polyclinic or Family Clinic for vaccinations?
My 6-month-old baby girl fell sick after attending infant care for 4 days. We brought her to a senior family physician clinic near our home after seeing it on the KKH PaedsENGAGE list and reading the Google reviews.
She was born at KKH, so until now we’ve been going to the polyclinic for all her developmental check-ups and vaccinations.
The doctor was honestly one of the better doctors I’ve ever met, very patient, reassuring and experienced. But the front desk experience caught us a bit off guard 😅 They kept emphasizing that they usually don’t take new patients because they already serve many long-term family patients across generations, and also mentioned their fees are much higher than normal GP clinics.
After the consultation, they helped schedule future vaccination appointments there and asked us to bring over the baby health booklet next time.
Now I’m wondering:
- Should we continue doing vaccinations/check-ups at the polyclinic, or switch to the family clinic?
- Is there any real advantage to doing baby vaccinations at a family clinic instead?
- If we continue vaccinations at the polyclinic but visit this clinic only when baby is sick, would that be considered weird/offensive to them?
- For parents with a regular family doctor, how does the relationship usually work in Singapore?
- What about developmental checkup, do it at polyclinic or should i ask if the clinic dows it?
Growing up, my family always just visited whichever nearby GP was convenient, so this whole “family doctor” concept is quite new to me.
Would love to hear how other parents approach this 🙏