Encouraging Health Checks to Create Greater Awareness for Risk of Diabetes

61 Mr Darryl David asked the Minister for Health whether the Ministry will collaborate and partner more organisations and corporations to provide for increased opportunities for health checks and tests that will raise more individuals' awareness of the risk of diabetes.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: We have been collaborating with community partners, employers and healthcare institutions to encourage Singaporeans to go for health screening. Our healthcare clusters also conduct community health screening programmes and encourage patients to go for screening when they visit polyclinics and general practitioners. These efforts have benefited more than 40,000 residents in 2016.

The Health Promotion Board works with businesses and unions to conduct onsite screening for employees. One example is the "Check Car, Check Body" programme which offers health screening to taxi drivers while they wait for their taxis to be serviced at the service centres. To date, we have reached out to over 200,000 workers, including taxi drivers and bus captains. We welcome the participation of other corporations in these programmes to benefit even more workers. Besides workplaces, we also tap on networks of the People's Association and grassroots organisations to educate Singaporeans about the importance of going for regular health screenings.

The Ministry of Health will continue our partnerships with these organisations to enhance the coverage of diabetes screening. This is a key component of the War on Diabetes.