MINISTRY OF HEALTH

The Ministry of Health aims to build a healthy nation and to achieve a high standard of health care for all Singaporeans. We will do so by preventing disease and educating the public. We will also upgrade primary health and hospital services to develop Singapore into a centre of medical excellence.

We will promote healthy habits and lifestyles, and expand screening and counselling services to prevent hereditary diseases and detect major illnesses like cancer and heart disease.

We will upgrade the school health and dental programme, and immunize children against childhood diseases and hepatitis.

We will train more medical, nursing and ancillary staff in Geriatric Medicine, and work closely with the Home Nursing Foundation to provide a home nursing service for the elderly and chronic sick.

Over the next five years, we will phase out old and inefficient outpatient clinics, and replace them with eight new polyclinics in major HDB new towns.

We will build the first community hospital at Ang Mo Kio new town, to cater for elderly patients and others who have simple illness not needing the expensive and sophisticated treatment offered by acute general hospitals.

We will redevelop four major hospitals - Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Toa Payoh Hospital, Kandang Kerbau Hospital and Woodbridge Hospital.

We will set up specialty centres to treat children's diseases and cancer, eye and heart disease.

We will restructure the acute hospitals, beginning with the Singapore General Hospital in early 1989, to improve service to the pubic.

We will establish selected new medical and dental specialities to meet the needs of the population. We will encourage medical research and development, and increase training and exchange programmes with internationally established medical centres.

We will review the career schemes of nursing, rehabilitation and other ancillary services and encourage school leavers to take up these careers so that we will have enough of these professionals.

We will monitor the use of Medisave closely to limit abuse, and introduce a Catastrophic Illness Insurance Scheme to protect participants against heavy medical expenses arising from major and prolonged illnesses.

We will implement and coordinate the new population policies and the Family Life Education Programme, to solve the problem of the better qualified women remaining unmarried, and to encourage Singaporeans who can afford it to have more children.

YEO CHEOW TONG Ag Minister for Health