REMARKS BY MDM RAHAYU MAHZAM, MINISTER OF STATE, MDDI AND MOH, AT THE PHARMACEUTICAL SOCIETY OF SINGAPORE PHARMACY WEEK HEALTH CARNIVAL

1.       Good afternoon to everyone here – Ms Lim Hong Yee, President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Singapore (PSS), the PSS team, and the residents here at Heartbeat @ Bedok.

2.       It is such a pleasure to join you at this wonderful event. I live in the west, so coming all the way to the east is a bit of a challenge. But I do so because today is an important day. Thank you so much for all the efforts by the PSS team to bring this to the residents of Bedok. We were just discussing earlier, how we can also bring this to the west. I look forward to welcoming you there

3        To all the residents here, you are so lucky because today is an important opportunity for you to learn a bit more about the pharmacist role in our healthcare sector. Pharmacists are the most accessible healthcare provider in the community, because you can have them around in your estate, your community, and they can help you with very meaningful efforts to take care of your health.

4        I really love the theme this year - “Befriend Your Pharmacist, Stay on Top of Your Health!”. Just now, Ms Lim had highlighted some of the key things that the pharmacist can do for you in the community. We have been talking about this in the Ministry of Health – we want to move healthcare into the community. Why? Because we do not want you to go to the hospitals when you're sick. We want you to stay healthy and prevent all the health diseases that may come your wa

5        To do that, we have Healthier SG – where you go to the GPs in the community. But some of you may have chronic illnesses, and you would want to manage it in the community and not have to go back to the hospital. To access some o.f this information in your community, we have many different partners and pharmacists, and important programmes like the Know Your Meds series, which is so important, especially for the ones who are young at heart but a bit older in age. It is important that you have people in the community to support you in understanding your medication. Because when you go to the hospital, you take some medication, sometimes there may be adverse reactions. Pharmacists can be the first line of support for you. If you have some common illnesses, like rashes and colds, they can also be a point of contact to give you advice. And now, vaping has become a worrying trend. Pharmacists are also available to help you with cessation efforts. This is something that we have put together with HPB and they are in the community to help people to quit either smoking or vaping.

6        I hope all of you would take the opportunity today to learn how pharmacists can help you with your journey to health, because they are also able to give some health advice, help you stay healthy, to help you manage your health, and to help you manage your chronic illnesses. So that you do not have to make appointments, go to the hospital, before you see a doctor. So take advantage of this. I really look forward to many more events like this, where we can all take care of our health together. I want to wish everyone the best of health, because that's the most important. Thank you very much.