the+summary+on+healthcare

erm how is the progress for the summary of the healthcare? hello? cn we lyk summarise this page?

who have the newspaper? mine's at school, i'll try to work on it as soon as i get the article

see we cud read th online version o th paper usin th schul subscription or not.


 * Health care ||
 * Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spoke about the four challenges facing Singapore in his National Day Rally speech on Sunday. Here is an edited version ||
 * [[image:http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/image/20090818/b8-1.jpg width="330"]] || [[image:http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/common/c.gif width="10"]] || [[image:http://www.straitstimes.com/STI/STIMEDIA/common/c.gif width="1" height="8"]]Home-care providers, such as nursing officer Thelma Sequeira, 55, of the Home Nursing Foundation, will play a big part in Singapore's health care in the future. ||

WE ARE preparing for our long-term future by strengthening our social safety nets. After food and shelter, good health is one of the most important basic requirements. It's more important than money. Singaporeans know that we have good doctors, good hospitals. Their worry is whether they can afford it, especially in the future after they grow old and retire. We have done many things to mitigate this worry. We have a 3M (Medisave, MediShield, Medifund) system designed precisely to keep health care affordable to all, especially for the lower-income group. We've steadily improved and upgraded and extended the 3M system so Medisave now covers long-term outpatient treatment, MediShield provides higher insurance payouts, Medifund (is) giving more help to the needy to settle their outstanding hospital bills. As a result, MPs see fewer cases of residents unable to afford health care, and medical social workers report that the Medifund is adequate to cover hospital bills. We will continue to widen the 3Ms progressively, but we have to do it carefully because we want to keep the system working and there are pitfalls. But I know Singaporeans are still concerned. We see medical science advancing, we see new technologies, new drugs, new procedures, people can live longer. But it costs more. Those in their 50s looking after aged parents feel the burden, and they wonder, what will happen to me when my turn comes. We need to gear up our health-care systems to prepare for this ageing population, and we are doing that. Today, I'd like to explain the implications of our ageing population and how we are preparing our health-care system to cope. What does it mean when we say our population will be older? It means there will be more demand on health care because older people are sick more often. But it also means a different pattern of health care. Younger patients don't go to hospital so often. When they go to hospital, it's an acute problem which can be treated within a few days and they go home well. Now, we have many more older patients who are admitted more frequently with multiple complaints. After a few days in hospital, their acute condition probably has stabilised, they no longer need intensive and complex treatment, but they are still not well enough to go home. After they go home, they may still need continuing medication for underlying long-term conditions. Maybe they have diabetes, maybe they have heart disease. Even when you're at home, you may get sick again and you may have to come back again. So we have to respond to this by putting in more resources into our hospital system, building new hospitals. We got the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital coming up in Yishun, we've got Jurong General Hospital coming up in the West. The buildings are easy to do. Getting the people to man them - the doctors, nurses, specialists, physiotherapists - that takes more doing, but we are in the process of doing that. It needs money. We are in the process of increasing the budget too. We need to improve our 3M system. We're doing that too. All these are necessary, but by itself, more is not the solution to the problem. Because we also have to get the whole system to be structured properly so that it will be adapted to cater to the ageing population. And to structure it properly, it means we need step-down care. What is step-down care? (Health Minister) Khaw Boon Wan has been talking about this for some time but let me explain it again because it's a vital idea and a crucial part of our solution. Step-down care means slow medicine: community hospitals, nursing homes, GPs doing more work, home care, people taking care of sick people at home. Organised properly, all this can provide competent, appropriate care, especially for the elderly patients. Step-down care today is provided mostly by VWOs (voluntary welfare organisations). They do an excellent job but they will need government help to deal with more elderly patients. One key thing we must do with this step-down care is to link up our acute hospitals - Tan Tock Seng, Khoo Teck Puat Hospital and so on - with community hospitals. That they can, so that you can have the best of both worlds. Patients are sick, they go to the acute hospitals, they need fast medicine. After they get better, they go to the community hospitals - Ren Ci, St Andrew's Community Hospital - where there are doctors and nurses who can look after the patients, and you have physiotherapy and occupational therapy and rehabilitation. But they don't need the high-end medicine. The patients receive slow medicine, they take some time, get well enough to go home. If in the slow medicine case, you need fast medicine, you shift back to the acute hospital. That way you get appropriate care, you save money and we also free up beds in the acute hospitals for more cases which need to be admitted. This is all in principle, but just to understand what it really meant, I went to the new Ren Ci Hospital which is co-located with Tan Tock Seng. Ren Ci has a new management and they are working with Tan Tock Seng to realise this new arrangement. Tan Tock Seng will guide the medical care of patients at Ren Ci. The two hospitals will be connected soon with a bridge so you can just wheel the patients across; you don't need an ambulance and Ren Ci will maintain its community outreach. It's got many volunteers helping to keep patients active and happy. Tan Tock Seng-Ren Ci is a good model. Other acute hospitals should also tie up with community hospitals in the same way. Changi is already partnering St Andrew's Community Hospital in the East. We will build similar sister community hospitals to match Khoo Teck Puat in the North, Jurong General Hospital in the West. This arrangement will draw on the strengths of both parties - government professional teams delivering high-quality care and VWOs good at pastoral care, community outreach. But the community hospitals cannot be the end of the story. Patients are best discharged home as soon as possible so that they can be with their families, in familiar surroundings. They'll be more comfortable, happier, much better and cheaper than leaving them in the hospital. I think families want this too, but families tell us they need some help and support at home. They need caregivers & maids who may need some professional training to look after the seniors. They could require nurses to visit them more frequently, check on the patient's condition, refer back to doctors in the hospital, if necessary. Home Nursing Foundation is doing good work in this respect and we need more of this. GPs need to do more things with patients at home, monitoring and supervising their care. We are working on upgrading home care. It's one of Ministry of Health's priorities. This is not sexy, glamorous medicine but this is how we can help Singaporeans look after their elderly, look after ourselves when we are elderly, look after our health-care costs. We have to think about the whole system, provide the right treatment at the right place to patients with different needs. So I hope that doctors will give full support to this. I hope the step-down care and VWOs will also work together with this because they are crucial. We also need the patients' cooperation and support. So we need everybody to cooperate so that we can deliver good, affordable health care and benefit all our patients. This is what the doctors and the hospitals can do. But I think one important business in health care is what we ourselves can do to stay healthy, by maintaining healthy lifestyles. You know what to do because every teacher tells children in school, and we tell you this all the time: Eat more fruits & vegetables, exercise regularly, don't smoke, keep your weight down. It's easy to say, very hard to do. So please try. It's a change in attitude. It requires discipline, perseverance. The best way is to harness social links and interests to help individuals to stick to their good habits. So we have community programmes which combine fitness with fun, with social activities. One innovative scheme which encapsulates neatly what we need to do is the Wellness programme - which Lim Boon Heng (Minister in the Prime Minister's Office in charge of ageing issues) has been promoting in Jurong as well as a few other constituencies - with three components: medical check-ups, regular exercise and social networking. So it becomes fun. We will progressively expand this to cover the whole island. Before I leave health care, let me just talk briefly about H1N1. That has been a big challenge for us these four months. I'm very glad that Singaporeans have responded well to this unexpected virus. We were very worried when the news first broke in April of swine flu in Mexico. We knew it would reach us very soon but we knew very little else - How dangerous was it? How treatable was it? How badly would we be affected? So at the onset we reacted strongly. We raised our alert status to orange. We did temperature scanning at entry points, masks and gowns in hospitals and clinics, we did home quarantine for suspects. Very soon, it became clear that H1N1 was different from SARS - more contagious, fortunately less deadly. We stepped down, orange to yellow, but we kept up our efforts to block the virus, to delay community spread, to buy time. The whole of Singapore responded. We had learnt our lessons from Sars. And we succeeded in delaying community spread, and slowing the impact on us. Perhaps we were lucky, but what we did made a difference. I'd like to thank everybody who was involved, the doctors and nurses, the hospital staff and GPs, those taking temperatures at the entry points, teachers and principals in our schools and kindergartens, health officials and so many more. You worked under a lot of stress, there must have been some worry over what the dangers might have been, but you didn't shirk from your responsibilities. You continued to perform under pressure. There was even one case where neurosurgery had to be carried out and the surgeon (did it) fully garbed up in PPE (personal protective equipment): gown, N95 mask. Singapore owes this team and all of them a debt of gratitude. CRITICAL to our long-term success, other than building the social safety nets like health care, is maintaining our social cohesion and particularly looking after our racial and religious harmony. We've discussed potential fault lines in our society quite often - between the rich and the poor, between Singaporeans and new arrivals. But the most visceral and dangerous fault line is race and religion. And people don't discuss that so much. I think there are two possible reasons. One is they may think we have no problem because we are living peacefully and harmoniously for so long. Two, perhaps people know this is a very sensitive subject and they are awkward to talk about it. I think there's some truth in both explanations. Yes, we are in a good position but, yes, we are aware of the sensitivities. Yet, from time to time, we have to discuss it honestly but tactfully to assess the progress we've made, recognise the trends in our society and the world around us, and remind ourselves to do better. We've made a lot of progress over the last 40 years in building our harmony and cohesion. We've integrated our people, we've enabled all communities to move ahead. We've built a stronger sense of Singaporean identity. The religious groups have contributed a great deal to this progress. The leaders of the groups have guided their flocks wisely. They've helped to set a wholesome and moral tone to our society. They do a lot of good work, not just for their own flocks, but for all groups. They've respected and accommodated one another, made practical compromises so that all can live harmoniously together in a uniquely Singaporean way. I know it first hand. I went to a Catholic school, it gave me a good education. Now as an MP, I know the good work which the church groups, mosque groups and temple groups do. Recently, a man came to see me. He had a house problem. He said, I have spent 23 years in and out of jail. I've now turned over a new leaf. Please don't let me go back to where I was again. He showed me his proudest possession, a certificate of completion of a Bible study course which helped him to turn over a new leaf, and know what is right and wrong. Here was one man whose life had been changed vastly for the better. We may take this for granted in Singapore but our visitors are astonished. Recently, I met the Grand Mufti of Syria. He came here to deliver the Muis lecture. I spent some time with him and learnt a lot. He told me that racial and religious diversity was a great treasure for a nation state. He was deeply impressed by how we had embraced diversity. He shared with me this parable. He said, imagine a mother with four children, a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Jew. Which child should the mother love most? So he says, it's an impossible question. Of course the mother will love all of them equally because they are all her children, but she will most approve of the one who takes best care of his or her other three siblings. I said, thank you very much for your compliment, but I didn't feel that Singapore had completely arrived. We still have to be careful because racial and religious conflicts can still pull us apart. Let me explain why this is so, from a micro and a macro point of view. A COUPLE of weeks ago, I saw a TV programme, Lonely Planet Six Degrees on the Discovery channel. The presenter was going to watch a Malay band perform at a Malay wedding in a void deck. On the way, they saw some tentage. The band leader, a Malay boy, said: 'No, that's not the wedding. That's a Chinese funeral, in the same void deck.' He explained that a void deck can be used for weddings, funerals, also to play soccer. I think the last part's not quite right. He added: 'Malays, Chinese and Indians, we stay together in the same block so when you have your cultural events, it all comes together.' That is what usually happens in Singapore. But sometimes things go wrong, like the case I described in my Chinese speech. Two families both want the same place. Malay family wants a wedding, Chinese family wants a funeral. Then there's a tussle. Fortunately the Malay family graciously agreed to move nearby to a different void deck - even though they had the first claim - after mediation by the grassroots leaders and the MP. The Town Council facilitated this by waiving charges and putting up posters to inform the wedding guests of the change in venue. Everything ended amicably. But it could easily have been otherwise. I cite this example not to criticise one group or another but to point out that such sensitive incidents are bound to arise from time to time in Singapore. They are very rare, maybe one incident in 300 funerals. How do I know? We collect statistics on everything. Usually it's handled uneventfully by the Town Councils. Sometimes the Malay wedding moves, sometimes the Chinese funeral moves. This case was unusual because both parties stood firm at the beginning. Fortunately after mediation, one side decided to give way. But if such an incident had been wrongly handled, and you have a case which escalates into a racial or religious conflict, then one case is bad enough. To solve such problems, to live peacefully together, we need good sense and tolerance on all sides, and a willingness to give and take. Otherwise whatever the rules, there will be no end of possible causes of friction - noise, Seventh Month auction, parking because of the mosque or the church, joss sticks, dog hair. That's the micro point of view. You don't see it because we don't report a lot in the newspapers. We keep it quiet, we deal with it in a low-key way. So you see the peaceful calm of Singapore harmoniously progressing, which in fact is harmoniously progressing. It's like a swan. You see it sailing across the water beautifully, graciously, underneath paddling away furiously. That's what MPs are doing when you don't know what they are doing. FROM a macro point of view, we see a global trend of rising religiosity. Groups have become more organised, more active. The followers have become more fervent in their faiths. It's true of all faiths, all over the world. The US is a strongly religious country. More than 90 per cent of Americans believe in God. More than 80 per cent consider religion important in their lives. About 80 per cent are Christians. There's a wave of revival - mega churches and tele-evangelism. US politics is strongly influenced by religion. With the Republicans, the Christian right are a powerful influence, setting the agenda, influencing who can be elected, what policies they pursue. The Democrats also need Christian support. In the last presidential election, Barack Obama's middle name became an issue. His middle name is Hussein. But he's not a Muslim. He's a Christian. And he spent a long time trying to explain to people: 'I'm not a Muslim, I'm a Christian and please vote for me.' There's a fierce struggle between the conservatives and the liberals in America over moral and cultural issues. They call them the Culture Wars. They argue over abortion, stem cell research, gay rights, gay marriages, and so on. A fierce struggle with both sides striving to set the agenda, not just for their own followers but for the country. With Muslims, there's an intense revival worldwide. It's also visible in South-east Asia. There's a strong sense of umma of the worldwide Muslim community. You see it in Malaysia. Big change in one generation. Very strict rules on dress, food, alcohol, contact between men and women prevail now which did not use to prevail a generation ago. It has become a conservative, more rigorously Islamic society. Islam has also become a major factor in Malaysian politics. In Indonesia, it's a similar trend, not as advanced, but similar. The DPR, their Parliament, is right now considering a law to require businesses to seek halal certification, not voluntary but compulsory. Indonesia is based on Pancasila. That means belief in one God, regardless of which religion you belong to. And yet this is happening. In Indonesia, the society is changing and they feel a sense of the global Muslim community. Recently when the Xinjiang riots happened between the Muslim Uighurs and the Han Chinese, the Indonesian Majlis Ulama Indonesia, their Ulama Council, issued a statement in support of the Muslim Uighurs. It's not their struggle in Indonesia but they felt a sense of togetherness with the Muslims far away. In South Korea, which was Buddhist originally, Christianity has become a major religion. The Christians occupy important positions in business and politics. The President is Christian. Mr Lee Myung Bak is a Presbyterian elder in his church. Some of his advisers are also Christian and the Buddhist community has raised concerns. Last year, thousands of Buddhist monks staged a protest against what they saw as Christians discriminating against Buddhists in South Korea. President Lee subsequently expressed regret that the Buddhists had been offended. The Buddhists have taken this positively, so there's some reconciliation. Singapore is carried along by this global tide. On Fridays, mosques overflow. On Sundays, churches overflow. Buddhists too are active, reaching out to a younger English-speaking generation. Some have introduced music to spread their teachings. Hindus too are celebrating more religious festivals and events. In itself, there's nothing wrong with people becoming more religious because religion is a positive force in human societies. It provides spiritual strength, guidance, solace, a sense of support for many people, especially in a fast-changing and uncertain world. But stronger religious fervour can have side effects which have to be managed carefully, especially in a multi-racial and multi-religious society.
 * "Step-down care means slow medicine: community hospitals, nursing homes, GPs doing more work, home care, people taking care of sick people at home. This is not sexy, glamorous medicine but this is how we can help Singaporeans look after their elderly, look after ourselves when we are elderly, look after our health-care costs." ||
 * HARMONY**
 * Wedding and funerals in void decks**
 * Religious surge, globally**