TATTOOING PROCEDURES (Regulation)

Mdm Halimah Yacob asked the Minister for Health, in view of the high risk of infection of unregulated tattooing procedures now freely conducted by untrained persons without any health or safety guidelines will his Ministry (i) regulate the conduct of this procedure; and (ii) consider banning those below 18 years from tattooing themselves unless they have parental consent as is the practice in some countries.

Mr Lim Hng Kiang: Mr Speaker, Sir, tattoo practitioners do not come under the purview of the Ministry of Health, as they are not medical practitioners. Services provided by these practitioners, which are non-medical, are therefore not required to be licensed under the Private Hospitals and Medical Clinics Act.

Nonetheless, if they carry out practices or procedures that are considered medical treatments, ie, they use harmful medical products or they prescribe poisons or controlled drugs, or use unlicensed equipment such as lasers, then they will be in contravention of a number of legislation. The Ministry of Health will then investigate into these tattoo practitioners, if they contravened any of these acts.

Tattooing procedures carry the risk of transmitting blood-borne diseases, like Hepatitis B, C and HIV. If sterilised needles and other hygiene measures are used, of course, the risk of infection is small.

Investigations into all the notified cases of blood-borne diseases in Singapore, including HIV, have indicated that none of these reported cases from 1985 to date have acquired the infection from tattooing procedures in Singapore.

Under the Infectious Diseases Act, the Ministry of Health has the power to prohibit any person from carrying out any occupation, trade or business if these are conducted in such a manner as is likely to cause the spread of any infectious diseases. If there is any evidence that the practice at any establishment is likely to have caused the spread of an infectious disease, these establishments can be closed down under this Act.

The Ministry of Health so far has also put in place health education programmes mainly through health education pamphlets, etc, to advise the public on the prevention of transmission of infectious diseases during tattooing. This is to ensure that the public will take the necessary precautions to minimise the chance of infection. However, the best precaution is not to undergo a tattooing itself.

At this point we feel that it is not necessary to regulate tattooing, nor require those below 18 to get parental consent. However, we will continue to monitor the practice and we will review the situation regularly.