MINISTRY OF HEALTH

MR YEO CHEOW TONG Minister for Health

The Ministry of Health aims to build a healthy nation through health promotion and disease prevention. It will keep medical services affordable, so that all Singaporeans can enjoy a high standard of basic health care.

Building a Healthy Nation

2. Singapore can only be a healthy nation if all Singaporeans take personal responsibility for their own health and take a personal interest in keeping fit and healthy.

3. We will encourage Singaporeans to adopt a healthy lifestyle, to reduce lifestyle-related diseases such as cancer, heart disease, stroke and diabetes. We will launch an annual nation-wide campaign to promote healthy lifestyles and to educate Singaporeans on the importance of regular exercise and a balanced diet. We will continue to discourage smoking through anti-smoking campaigns.

4. The National Healthy Lifestyle Programme will encourage and motivate Singaporeans to make healthy lifestyle a way of life. These campaigns will encourage Singaporeans to stay slim, exercise regularly, avoid smoking, reduce blood cholesterol levels and the incidence of high blood pressure, and switch to more healthy diets and eating habits.

Strengthening Disease Prevention

5. The Ministry will strengthen disease prevention programmes, and maintain a high immunisation rate against the common childhood diseases. We will expand selected health screening programmes for specific groups at risk, to detect diseases early. We will upgrade the health surveillance programme for children to detect physical and developmental abnormalities.

Ensuring affordable basic medical care

6. With an aging population, rising manpower costs and greater use of expensive medical equipment and drugs, health care costs will inevitably continue to rise. Following on the Review Committee on National Health Policies, the Ministry will make a thorough evaluation of current health care policies, in order to contain health care expenditure and government subsidies, and keep basic health care accessible and affordable to all Singaporeans. This will include reviewing:

a. the Government's role, including the extent to which Government should be directly involved in providing health care, and in controlling or influencing health care costs;

b. the ideal mix of private sector initiatives and Government's involvement;

c. how to give individuals maximum freedom of choice and maximum incentive to stay healthy and minimise use of medical services.

7. The Government will continue to subsidize Class B2 and C wards to keep basic health care affordable to the average and lower-income groups. Subsidies on Class A and B1 beds will be progressively phased out to focus Government health subsidies on those who most need them.

8. Medisave and Medishield have given most Singaporeans access to good health care. But the self-employed are not covered by Medisave. To meet their hospitalisation needs, especially when they retire, the Government will extend Medisave to cover as many of the self-employed workers as possible.

9. The Government will raise Medisave contribution rates, especially for older Singaporeans, so that Singaporeans have adequate provisions for their medical needs.

10. To help those who do not have sufficient Medisave, the Government is setting up Medifund as an additional safety net.

Upgrading Hospitals and Clinics

11. The Ministry will continue the programme of rebuilding hospitals and clinics. The upgrading of Alexandra Hospital will be completed the end of 1993. We will commission a new psychiatric hospital to replace Woodbridge Hospital in late 1992. We will review and finalise plans to rebuild Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Kandang Kerbau Hospital and a new General Hospital at Simei.

12. We have opened four new polyclinics in Toa Payoh, Jurong, Tampines and Hougang New Towns. The polyclinic at Woodlands will be completed by the end of 1992. We will also build new polyclinics at Bukit Batok, Geylang and Chua Chu Kang.

13. The first Community Hospital will be open in Ang Mo Kio in 1992. It will provide low cost hospitalisation for the elderly and chronic sick, and for patients who do not need to go to acute hospitals. The Community Hospital will also have a Senior Citizens' Health Care Centre and a Dialysis Centre. Maintaining High Professional Standards

14. We will regulate private hospitals and medical clinics to ensure that they maintain high professional standards, and set up a register of specialists under the Medical Registration Act so that specialists are properly accredited.

15. We will improve our postgraduate training programmes both to prepare specialists for the different specialties and to train competent family physicians. The fourth polytechnic will offer higher level training for nurses, and diploma courses for rehabilitation therapists and radiographers.

Achieving replacement fertility

16. We will continue to encourage Singaporeans to have three children and more if they can afford it, in order to achieve replacement fertility levels. We will monitor the population trends and adjust population policies to meet the needs of the country.