Speech By Health Minister Gan Kim Yong at The Wellness Family Day Cum Launch Of N.I.C.E Programme 26 Feb 2012 Hougang Community Club

I am happy to be here this morning for the Wellness Family Day and for the launch of the Nurses’ Initiative for Community Engagement, or N.I.C.E, for short. 

2. It is indeed NICE that the community is taking the initiative to help seniors age in place actively and gracefully. 

Public-Private-People Partnership to Make Singapore Age Ready

3. These efforts are timely. Over the next two decades, our society will undergo profound change as our population ages. By 2030, about one in five Singaporeans or close to one million Singaporeans will be above the age of 65 years old. Seniors will thus form a significant part of our society. We must get ready for that by improving access, affordability and quality of aged care, and to promote the health, employability and liveability for seniors.  We need to plan ahead and gear up – in terms of facilities and services in a systematic way and at a significant scale. 

4. One of our key objectives is to help our seniors live long and live well. Our seniors aspire not just to live long, but to have fulfilling, active golden years. Active ageing thus remains a priority, as more than 85% of the 600,000 seniors in 2020 are expected to be functional and healthy. We need to reach out and encourage seniors to take charge of their own health and wellbeing. We want ageing to be a positive experience for our seniors. We will press on with initiatives and programmes to promote early screening, healthy lifestyle, lifelong learning and employability as well as to make our living environment “age ready”. 

5. However, the government’s efforts alone are not sufficient. We must work together with the private and people sectors if we want to respond effectively to the challenges of an ageing population. 

Active Ageing: Promoting Seniors’ Wellness

6. In particular, we need “people power” to promote “wellness” for our seniors holistically through facilitating active ageing as well as family support and community bonding. This involves the individual, the family unit and the community. The Wellness Programme is thus a key initiative that is premised on the need to foster a close collaboration with the people sector such as grassroots organisations and Community Clubs to help active ageing take root within our heartlands.

7. This has proven to be the right strategy. Since its launch in 2008, the Wellness Programme has reached out to 148,000 seniors above the age of 50. A study of some 5,000 members of the Wellness Programme in 2010 found that participation rate in community activities increased from 13% before joining the programme to 57% one year later. The number of respondents who attended 10 or more community activities or interest groups in the last 12 months also increased from 8% to 34%. The Wellness Programme has also resulted in more friendship being formed amongst seniors. While the majority of respondents did not have friends among their neighbours at the start of the programme, 40% made more than 10 new friends and 36% got to know more than 10 neighbours after joining. The People’s Association intends to extend the Wellness Programme to all 87 constituencies by next year and to reach out to 500,000 seniors by 2015, to encourage seniors to stay physically, mentally, and socially active and to go for regular health screenings.

8. Since the Wellness Programme was introduced in Hougang in 2010, about 2,000 seniors have taken part in the activities. I hope that through the various booths set up to mark Wellness Family Day today, more seniors will be encouraged to sign up for the different interest groups as well as health screening and health talks. 

The Community’s Role in Embracing Our Seniors

9. Beyond seniors who embrace active ageing, there could be a particular segment of the senior population whom we need to make an extra effort to reach out to. These would be those who are staying alone who could be too frail to go out of their homes frequently. We will thus also need to invest adequately in care services and facilities to respond to the increase in demand for this group of seniors. This is part of our ageing-in-place strategy, which includes the building of aged care facilities such as day care centres in the community. Beyond the hardware, we will also need to build the support networks within each community such that we can reach out to them, keep in touch with them and constantly check on them to ensure their wellbeing. Taken together, these initiatives will allow our seniors to live meaningfully at home and within their existing communities, drawing upon the network of neighbours, friends and families.

10. I understand that many voluntary welfare organisations and grassroots bodies have already started befriending and reaching out to seniors across the island. The Nurses’ Initiative for Community Engagement, or N.I.C.E, is yet another initiative in this direction. It is a ground-up community service initiative by a group of nurses, doctors and lay volunteers, reaching out to vulnerable home-bound seniors in the community. Under N.I.C.E, volunteer registered nurses conduct individualised one-to-one home visits to do health assessment, health literacy, and counseling.  These include dementia screening, chronic disease, falls risk and community support awareness.  The nurses will also provide guidance on follow-up for the seniors, referring them to the relevant community health and social services as and when needed.

11. N.I.C.E demonstrates the leadership that the nursing profession can bring to aged care. Nurses are the key health care professionals involved in community and home care, managing chronic diseases holistically through interventions and patient empowerment. This “community nursing” service provided by N.I.C.E is indeed very valuable, as it bridges a gap within the community and empowers our seniors to manage their health conditions better. 

12. I am impressed that in the short time since N.I.C.E started, they have built up a pool of 100 volunteers who offer their time and services to the community. I would like to commend the volunteer nurses for stepping forth to help. As Minister for Health, I appreciate that our nurses are already working very hard within hospitals to look after patients. It is therefore commendable that they are willing to spend their precious off days to volunteer and work within the community. This speaks volumes of their dedication, passion and service to the community. 

13. I am pleased to announce that beyond Hougang, N.I.C.E has also started in Marine Parade and will soon be done in Henderson. Going forward, I hope to see more of such initiatives where the public, private and people sectors come together to co-create solutions to support Singapore’s ageing population.

Conclusion

14. The launch today is indeed a celebration of community partnership and community service to our seniors. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the People’s Association, the Hougang Community Club, and the volunteers from the N.I.C.E programme for their dedication and good work in serving seniors in the community. It is through such efforts of the public, private and people sectors that we can forge a supportive environment to enable our seniors to live long and live well. 

15. Thank you.