Children, The Family and Health: What it Takes to Give Children Long Life
The Singapore Workshop: Singapore
Introduction
Singapore has a population of 3.04 million. The birth rate is at an average of 45,000-48,000 per year. According to the Ministry of Health’s statistics, the crude death rate remains low at 4.5 deaths per 1000 resident population. Our infant mortality rate has declined to a low of 3.8 per 1,000 live births in 1996, compatible to that of developed countries.
Health Programme
In Singapore, we have a complete health care programme for children which starts at birth. There is a comprehensive childhood immunisation programme with about 98% compliance. As the children reach the age for schooling, there is the School Health Service to promote good health and reduce illness. Those students identified as having a health problem were referred to the relevant specialists for further evaluation and management.
School Dental Service
School Dental Service is also available. All students will undergo dental checking at least once a year.
Health Education
Health awareness education is on-going. There are talks, health fairs, video presentation and the distribution of pamphlets all year around.
Hospital Facilities
In Singapore, there are a total of 23 hospitals. These include Government Hospital, Private Hospital and Community Hospitals. Together they provide primary, secondary and tertiary care.
Common Health Problems
The common ones are defective vision (affecting 47% of students, the common type of defective vision is myopia), obesity (12%), asthma (7%), underweight (6%) and cardiac conditions (3%).
Observation as a Parent
As a parent with children under 15, I feel very comfortable in term of health care for my children. They are under a good complete health programme.
On the other hand, Singapore is moving in a rapid pace in all areas. New, emerging health problems arise. Stress on family, children is on the rise.
Manpower is the only resource of a country like Singapore. We emphasis education training as an important process in upbringing our children. Unconsciously, many of us exert a lot of pressure on our school children and ourselves as a parent.
To address the stress on the children and the parent, there are new services available:
(a) Before and After School Care Service
This service is provided to help working parents with custody of their children after school. This will help to reduce the latch-key children problem and cause less worry for those working mothers especially.
(b) Extended Family
Our housing programme encourages the young couple to reside in the vicinity of our parents. This will provide good support to one an other if needed.
(c) Seminar and Talk for Public
Seminar and talk are organised by government bodies and nongovernment organisations to share and tackle the problems which could affect the mental health of our population.
We will continue to educate our people through health education programmes. National Healthy Lifestyle programme will reach out to people of all ages.
Last Modified: November 29, 2002