MINISTRY OF HEALTH

The Committee on Medical Specialisation was formed in 1970, so that specialist treatment could reach international standards.

The Government has accepted in full the recommendations of the Committee for the priority development of five specialities*. Further comprehensive development to upgrade the whole of the medical services is being undertaken.

• Neurosurgery, Cardiac-thoracic Surgery, Plastics and Reconstructive Surgery, Paediatric Surgery and Nephrology.

A planning adviser will soon be engaged+ at a cost of $750,000. This expansion programme will be costly. It will modernise the existing hospitals and build new hospitals. The programme may include a re-building of Singapore's main General Hospital at Outram Road to house the new medical specialities, and also the building of four new hospitals in Changi (Bedok), Jurong. Woodlands, Seletar/Nee Soon on sites reserved in the Master Plan.

• At the time of writing Selection Committee has met and made its recommendations of the appointment.

The British Services hospitals at Alexandra and Sembawang will be taken over later this year. These hospitals will cost over $5� million in the first year. Another $540,000 have been approved to implement the interim plans of establishing the recommended specialities with immediate effect. A further $800,000 will have to be approved for up dating of hospital equipment.

This rapidly expanding service will require a large number of trained medical personnel. Trained officers for the specialities must be found from within and outside the services. Since last year the School of Post-Graduate Medical Studies in the University has held courses leading to the degree of Master of Medicine in surgery, medicine, paediatrics and obstetrics and gynaecology. However, overseas training awards will continue to be given for specialist training in eminent medical institutes.

Since not all our requirements for the entire range of services can be manned by Singaporeans, we shall continue to allow non-nationals with suitable qualifications and expertise to practise in Singapore. The registration laws for the various medical professions - for medical practitioners, dental surgeons and others - will be amended to allow the professionally trained persons with non-Commonwealth qualifications but of comparable standards and experience to practise in Singapore.

Public health

The problems of over-population, pollution of the environment and the growing use of chemicals in everyday life have to be watched and preventive measures taken. A clean Singapore has to a fair extent been achieved. The next phase is to raise the overall standards of our environment with effective antipollution control.

Development of our water resources to its maximum is crucial. It will be necessary to clean up our rivers and canals. Wastewater, whether domestic or industrial, must go into the sewers and not into open drains, canals or rivers.

This waste water from factories must be treated to acceptable limits before it is allowed into our drains and our watercourses. A period of grace is being given before the Government will enforce the measures under the Environmental Public Health (Prohibition on Discharge of Trade Effluents into Water Courses) Regulations, 1971.

It is also necessary to change over to "soft" detergents. Other countries have found that the present "hard" detergents give rise to water treatment problems.

Family planning is in its second five-year operation. It is being complemented by the laws liberalising abortions and on the voluntary sterilisation of persons. It has been estimated that about 50 per cent of the fertility decline* in Singapore in the last five years has been due to the efforts of family planning.

• Wolfers, D (1970) The Singapore Family Planning Programme: Further Evaluation Data, American Journal of Public Health, 60.

In the first year of experience of the operation of the Abortion Act, 1969. (which came into force on 20th March, 1970) the number of abortions was less than the original estimates of 10 per cent of births. It is lower than the experience of other countries which had liberalised their laws on abortions. Further, the vast majority of abortions done were on married women with large families and who could not afford any more children. Only 5 per cent of the applicants were unmarried as compared to 46 per cent in the United Kingdom.

For the control of chemicals and drugs, the various laws relating to their control will be amended to ensure that the quality of chemicals and drugs is maintained. We must also prevent abuse and suppress trafficking.

Hawker resettlement

The Government has spent, and is planning to spend, more money to subsidise and build clean and attractive food stall complexes for hawker resettlement. For the second half of this year, we have provided a sum of $5 million for the Public Health Division to acquire land as a pilot scheme. The Housing and Development Board will build hawker complexes on these sites. The stalls will then be let out at subsidised rentals. This will be a subsidy not only to stallholders, but to our workers who take their meals at these stalls. The Hawker Department has found that when economic rents are charged for these stalls, the price of food goes up or less food is given for the same price. In the next few years, we shall reside all the hawkers into cleaner and more attractive surroundings, and remove one of the blots on our clean and green environment.