ENT in Singapore: what tonsils, ear tubes and implants actually cost

Ear, nose and throat is the specialty most families meet first — a child’s recurrent tonsillitis, a blocked nose that will not clear, hearing that has faded. It is also where Singapore has an unusually strong head and neck cancer service, because nasopharyngeal cancer is common in the region. This entry lists the ten providers that handle most ENT work, from routine to complex, and what each level costs.

What decides the outcome

Routine or complex. Tonsils, adenoids, ear tubes, sinus surgery and septal surgery are done well at every unit here; choose by wait and cost. Head and neck cancer, skull base surgery, cochlear implants and voice disorders are concentrated in a few centres.

Hearing. Audiology, hearing aids and cochlear implantation run as a separate pathway inside ENT, with their own subsidies for children and seniors.

Children. Paediatric ENT is largely at KKH and NUH, and the queue for routine children’s surgery on the subsidised route is one of the longest in the system.

Singapore General Hospital — Department of Otorhinolaryngology

SGH’s ENT department is the largest, with subspecialty services in head and neck oncology, otology and skull base surgery, rhinology, laryngology and a voice clinic, and the SingHealth cochlear implant programme. It is the referral centre for complex head and neck cancer alongside the National Cancer Centre.

National University Hospital — Department of Otolaryngology

NUH’s department serves the west with head and neck surgery, otology and cochlear implants, rhinology and a paediatric ENT service through the children’s hospital. It runs the NUHS hearing implant programme.

Tan Tock Seng Hospital — Department of Otorhinolaryngology

TTSH’s ENT department covers the central region with general ENT, sleep surgery, rhinology and head and neck surgery, and works with the National Neuroscience Institute on skull base cases.

Changi General Hospital, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and Sengkang General Hospital

Each general hospital runs an ENT department for routine adult ENT, sinus and ear surgery and hearing services, referring cancer and implant cases to the larger centres. Shorter subsidised queues for routine work.

KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital — Paediatric ENT

KKH runs the national paediatric ENT service: tonsils and adenoids, ear tubes, airway disorders, paediatric hearing loss and the children’s cochlear implant programme. Most children’s ENT referrals in the country come here.

National Cancer Centre Singapore — Head and Neck

NCCS runs the medical and radiation oncology side of head and neck cancer, with SGH’s surgeons; nasopharyngeal cancer, which is mainly treated with radiotherapy, is largely managed here.

Mount Elizabeth Hospitals (Orchard and Novena)

Private ENT practices at the Parkway campuses cover routine and surgical ENT, sinus and sleep surgery, and several private head and neck surgeons. Same-week appointments, private rate.

Raffles ENT Centre

Raffles Hospital’s in-house ENT service with published fees, audiology and hearing aid services on site, and a same-system path from Raffles clinics.

Public versus private, in practice

Each row names the procedure code its figures were read from. The first two are day-surgery figures; the implant row is inpatient except in the subsidised column.

Procedure	Code	Public, subsidised	Public, unsubsidised	Private
Tonsils removed, with or without adenoids	SM705T	S$1,000–1,817	S$4,524–5,325	S$12,641–15,838
Ear tubes, both ears	SM708E	S$563–1,187	S$2,593–2,903	S$7,770–10,246
Cochlear implant	SM701E	S$8,895–22,995	Not published	S$78,343–93,269

Two rows were deleted rather than corrected. The old table priced endoscopic sinus surgery and septoplasty. The ministry’s bill index carries codes for both, and those codes publish no figures at all — nor do the nearest alternatives that were checked. So there is nothing to quote, and inventing a band is how the rest of this table came to be wrong. Ask the hospital directly for those two.

Where the old numbers missed. A private tonsillectomy was given as S$7,000–12,000 against a published S$12,641–15,838. Private ear tubes were put at S$3,500–6,000 against S$7,770–10,246 — roughly half. The pattern from the urology entry repeats exactly: the private column was the one guessed most optimistically, and it is the column a person is most likely to be paying from their own pocket.

The cochlear implant row is worth reading twice. Subsidised, it spans S$8,895–22,995; privately, S$78,343–93,269. That is the widest ratio anywhere in this archive, and it sits on a procedure usually done in childhood.

Hearing aids for children and for seniors under the assistive technology schemes are subsidised separately. Confirm figures with the hospital’s financial counselling estimate.

What a referral actually looks like

Snoring and sleep apnoea sit in ENT in Singapore, with sleep studies run by the larger hospitals and surgery offered when a CPAP machine fails. The subsidised route is the same polyclinic referral; the sleep study itself is a day-case charge on top of the consultation, and the machine, if prescribed, is a private purchase with limited subsidy.

A polyclinic or CHAS GP referral gives the subsidised rate at the regional hospital’s ENT clinic, or at KKH for children. Suspected head and neck cancer — a neck lump, persistent hoarseness, one-sided nasal blockage with bleeding — is fast-tracked. Routine children’s surgery on the subsidised route waits months; private hospitals operate within weeks.

Frequently asked questions

Is grommet (ear tube) surgery worth doing?

For children with persistent glue ear and hearing loss affecting speech or school, the evidence supports it, and it is a short day procedure. For occasional ear infections without hearing loss, watchful waiting is the usual advice at every unit here.

Which hospital is best for a child’s tonsils?

KKH does the most and is the subsidised route. Private ENT surgeons do the same operation faster at private rates; the procedure is standard and outcomes do not differ meaningfully by hospital.

Is a cochlear implant subsidised in Singapore?

For children who meet the criteria, yes, substantially, through the public implant programmes. Adult implants are subsidised on the standard ward class basis and the device itself is a large part of the bill.

How urgent is a neck lump?

A neck lump that persists more than two to three weeks in an adult should be referred and is fast-tracked in public ENT clinics; most turn out to be benign, but the ones that are not benefit from early treatment.

Does MediSave cover hearing aids?

Not the aids themselves in most cases. Subsidies for hearing aids come through separate assistive technology schemes for eligible children and seniors, applied for through the hospital’s audiology service.

Check also

• Pediatrics hospitals in Singapore — where children’s ENT sits inside paediatric care
• Oncology hospitals in Singapore — head and neck cancer beyond the surgery
• Hospitals in Singapore: the specialty index — every specialty and its referral route

Where this index comes from

The cost table was rebuilt on 24 September 2026 against the Ministry of Health’s bill information for the procedure code named in each row, using the published typical bill range for the setting shown. Those figures are kept as data alongside the entry so a later check can report which have moved.

Private price guides are no longer used for any figure here. They were the source of the two rows that were out by roughly half.

This round verified the costs only. The department descriptions and the hearing subsidy notes were not re-sourced, so the date applies to the figures and not to the prose around them.