HEALTH EDUCATION AND PREVENTIVE HEALTH CARE (Expenditure)

Mr Chew Heng Ching asked the Acting Minister for Health how much was spent on health education and preventive health care each year in the years 1983 to 1987.

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: Mr Speaker, Sir, my Ministry's expenditure for health education and preventive health care services is as follows: FY 83 $24.86 million FY 84 $28.56 million FY 85 $31.36 million FY 86 $30.61 million FY 87 S30.72 million

This includes the expenditure incurred by the Training and Health Education Department, the Maternal and Child Health Service, the School Health Service, the School Dental Service, the Childhood Immunization Programme and the screening and control of tuberculosis and sexually transmitted diseases.

The figures do not include the cost of providing the laboratory service to support the programmes and the patient education by doctors and nurses in the hospitals. Such expenditure is difficult to quantify.

The cost of preventive health care and health education provided by the Ministry of the Environment and by the Industrial Health Unit of the Ministry of Labour is also not included in the figures that I have just read out.

Mr Chew Heng Ching (Kaki Bukit): Sir, may I ask the Minister whether he is happy with the role played by the private medical sector in health education and preventive health care and whether there are plans to get the private medical sector to play a greater role in these areas.

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: Mr Speaker, Sir, the Ministry believes that some of the doctors in the private sector are carrying out a fair share of the required health education. However, we are not too sure as to what percentage of the doctors are actually doing it. We will be discussing further with the professional bodies to see how we can further improve on the level of health education being carried out. The private sector has also been obtaining from the Ministry quite a large amount of the literature on health education. If that is any indication, it indicates that at least they are taking them and distributing them to their patients.