{"id":317,"date":"2017-03-10T10:11:28","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T02:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/?p=317"},"modified":"2023-08-04T17:05:15","modified_gmt":"2023-08-04T09:05:15","slug":"health-initiatives-budget-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/health-initiatives-budget-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"New Ministry of Health initiatives announced in Singapore\u2019s 2017 Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Minister of Health Gan Kim Yong announced on Thursday (March 9) a number of health initiatives that the ministry would be looking to spend part of its SGD 10.7 billion budget on. During the Parliament\u2019s Committee of Supply debate, Yong explained that the ministry would be focusing beyond healthcare to health, beyond hospital to community, and beyond quality to value. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The way they\u2019ll get <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/2017\/09\/01\/public-vs-private-healthcare-singapore-guide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Singapore\u2019s healthcare system<\/a> from its current state to the desired one is through a number of new health initiatives aimed at helping people live healthier lives, while making healthier choices easier. An article from the <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.straitstimes.com\/singapore\/health\/from-raising-legal-age-for-smoking-to-flat-fee-for-health-screening-7-things-about\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Straits Times<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has highlighted seven actions that people should know about from the debate.<\/span><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--><\/style>\n<p><span data-sheets-value=\"{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-sheets-userformat=\"{&quot;2&quot;:573,&quot;3&quot;:[null,0],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;12&quot;:0}\"><div class='code-block code-block-1' style='margin: 8px 0; clear: both;'>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/plans\/individual-health-insurance\/?campSource=PPSG-Blog&utm_source=blog&utm_medium=content_banner&utm_campaign=banner&utm_content=single\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-774\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/WP-Banner-revamp-final-20221207_1.-Single-final.jpg\" alt=\"Individual health insurance blog\" width=\"1138\" height=\"493\" \/><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">1. Inexpensive health screenings<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Beginning in September this year, eligible persons will be able to pay SGD 5 or less for health screenings. These screenings will look for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/2016\/06\/03\/fighting-diabetes-in-singapore\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">diabetes<\/a>, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and colorectal and cervical cancers. CHAS cardholders will pay even less (2 SGD), while the Pioneer Generation will have access to free health screenings. Subsidies will also be provided for high risk 18 to 30 year olds. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">2. Smoking age to be raised from 18 to 21<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ministry of Health is also aiming to propose legislative change in the next year, calling on Parliament to raise the legal tobacco purchasing age from 18 years old to 21. 45% of tobacco users in Singapore began smoking regularly between the ages of 18 and 21, so raising the age aims to reduce the number of smokers in general. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">3. Greater focus on providing healthier food options<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ministry\u2019s Healthier Ingredient Development Scheme will be introduced in July to encourage healthier ingredient use by those in the food industry. It will provide funding support for manufacturers to develop healthier products, such as by using whole grains and healthier cooking oils. The public sector itself will also shift to adopt better, healthier catering options for all events and training courses. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">4. Boosting healthcare staff numbers<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With the number of health staff numbers being a real concern for many countries around the world, Singapore\u2019s government has plans to increase their numbers by 9,000. This is said to mean approximately 2,700 nurses, 4,500 support staff and 1,800 professionals, managers, executives and technicians. Community care nurse numbers are also expected to rise as the Ministry of Health invests SGD 24 million into staffing. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">5. Boosts for mental health<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mental health is also set to get a bump in support with frontline staff from government agencies being trained to spot and respond to community mental health cases. \u00a0More than 130 social service agencies, including the police, will be trained to support people with mental health concerns. Polyclinics will also be provided with funding to provide more mental health services. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">6. Encouraging GPs to join Primary Care Networks<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Budget 2017 will also introduce a new scheme to help general practitioners manage patients with chronic medical conditions better. Joining a <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">primary care network<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, GPs will be included in a virtual group that will allow doctors to pool resources together. With the supported capacity, patients with conditions such as diabetes and high cholesterol will be able to be monitored better to ensure the best care decisions are made. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">7. New family clinics and polyclinics<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are two new family medicine clinics opening this year; one in Keat Hong and the other in Tampines. The government is also opening polyclinics in Jurong West and Punggol in 2017, while three new ones in Bukit Panjang, Eunos and Sembawang will be operational by 2020. Minister of State for Health, Lam Pin Min, also made the announcement that a polyclinic in the Kallang\/Balestier area is also planned. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Supporting health initiatives with quality medical insurance coverage<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These new government and ministry-announced health initiatives are great news for Singaporeans, however many expats will only benefit from a few of the actions. Increased staffing numbers are great for everyone, meaning there should be shorter wait times and greater choice for physicians. It should be noted that these actions are also only announced intentions, meaning that the parliament will still need to pass legislation before the Ministry can begin work, such as the laws required for increasing the smoking age. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Expats in Singapore can fill the gaps in government provided and subsidized healthcare that their status restricts them from by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/2018\/10\/26\/singapore-medical-insurance-expats\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">securing adequate private medical insurance<\/a>. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pacific Prime Singapore<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> has served many clients in the past 15 years with solid, affordable health coverage both here and abroad. If you\u2019d like to know more about making your healthcare options more comprehensive, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/contact-us\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">contact the advisers<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at Pacific Prime Singapore today!<\/span><\/p>\n<style type=\"text\/css\"><!--td {border: 1px solid #ccc;}br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;}--><\/style>\n<p><span data-sheets-value=\"{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:&quot;&quot;}\" data-sheets-userformat=\"{&quot;2&quot;:573,&quot;3&quot;:[null,0],&quot;5&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;6&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;7&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;8&quot;:{&quot;1&quot;:[{&quot;1&quot;:2,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;5&quot;:[null,2,0]},{&quot;1&quot;:0,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;3&quot;:3},{&quot;1&quot;:1,&quot;2&quot;:0,&quot;4&quot;:1}]},&quot;12&quot;:0}\"><div class='code-block code-block-6' style='margin: 8px 0; clear: both;'>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/compare-quotes\/step-one\/?campSource=PPSG-Blog&utm_source=blog&utm_medium=cta_banner&utm_campaign=banner&utm_content=quote\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-781\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/PPSG_Gen_02.jpg\" alt=\"Get an Insurance quote banner\" width=\"1138\" height=\"493\" \/><\/a><\/p><\/div>\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Minister of Health Gan Kim Yong announced on Thursday (March 9) a number of health initiatives that the ministry would be looking to spend part of its SGD 10.7 billion budget on. During the Parliament\u2019s Committee of Supply debate, Yong explained that the ministry would be focusing beyond healthcare to health, beyond hospital to community, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":319,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[767,332,768,325,330,331,324,38,335,329,326,327,30,336,328,333,334],"class_list":["post-317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-ban_sin","tag-budget-2017","tag-cta_gen","tag-government-health-initiatives","tag-health-budget","tag-health-budget-2107","tag-health-initiatives","tag-health-insurance","tag-mental-health","tag-ministry-of-health","tag-singapore-government","tag-singapore-government-health-initiatives","tag-singapore-health-insurance","tag-singapore-mental-health","tag-singapore-ministry-of-health","tag-smoking-age","tag-smoking-laws"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>New Singaporean health initiatives in Ministry of Health&#039;s 2017 budget<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Singaporean Ministry of Health has announced a range of new health initiatives in the 2017 budget, aimed at creating a healthier future. 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He writes articles and blog posts, creates infographics and videos, translates between Chinese and English, and more. Skilled at explaining complicated concepts in layman\u2019s terms, Martin believes the gold standard of translation is attained when the translated text is not only accurate, but also reads like an original text. Martin holds a degree in Economics from the University of London, UK. Since joining Pacific Prime, Martin has become even more aware of the gap between the true value of insurance products and most people\u2019s appreciation of it, and developed a passion for demystifying and simplifying matters, so that more people get the protection they need at a cost they can easily afford. In his free time, Martin attends concerts of various genres, and plays the violin with piano accompaniment he pre-recorded himself or played live by his niece.","url":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/author\/martin-lee\/"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1430,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317\/revisions\/1430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pacificprime.sg\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}