SPEECH BY MR ONG YE KUNG, MINISTER FOR HEALTH AND COORDINATING MINISTER FOR SOCIAL POLICIES, AT HER WORLD’S WOMEN OF THE YEAR GALA DINNER 2026, 6 OCTOBER 2026

Mr Chan Yeng Kit, Executive Chairman, SPH Media,

I know tonight is the Women of the Year Award, but nevertheless, I want to wish this man all the best and congratulations. I hope this coming job is better than the last one in the Ministry of Health (MOH). And also to Mr Kuek Yu Chuang (Managing Director of SPH Media), congratulations.

Ms Jennie Chua, Chair of the Women of the Year Judging Panel,

Award winners, friends, ladies and gentlemen.

1.              I did not prepare a speech. Because when I see award ceremonies, everyone is so eloquent. They just speak off-the-cuff all the time. I thought, let me try that tonight. I thought I will tell a story.

2.              I feel 2026, for me, is a special year. It started from Chinese New Year this year, the second day of Chinese New Year. In my constituency, there is a temple called the BW Monastery. I am a freethinker, so I am very inclusive when it comes to praying. I pray everywhere.

3.              On the second day of Chinese New Year, they always invite me to the temple to pray. When I pray, I will also go to this particular altar and seek a fortune stick. You know how it works? You have all the sticks in the container, and you shake until one drops out. So this one dropped out, and I actually kept it all this while. It is at the back of my phone. I will read to you this fortune that I got this year.

4.              Okay, this is Goddess of Mercy, Divine Lot 40. It says: "As the sun sets, the moon will rise. The lunar power grows; the solar power wanes. If it be a woman seeking fortune, she will be blessed with joy all year."

5.              So I did not qualify. I am not a woman. I asked the teacher, "What does this mean? It sounds like a very good fortune stick, but I am not a woman." She said, "Yeah, too bad. You are not a woman, so you cannot have all the fortune." But that said, the Buddhist teacher said that the fortune means that I have to do something for women this year, and it will bring me good fortune.

6.              And coincidentally, even before I drew this lot, I have been asking some questions in MOH. Specifically, I have been asking: Why is it that a woman at risk of having breast cancer cannot claim insurance for a preventive mastectomy?

7.              My staff has been explaining because it is preventive. Insurance is only for curative procedures. And I have been asking, why? Because if a woman has the BRCA1 or BRCA2 genetic variation, she is very likely to have cancer, and you will still have to go through a mastectomy. So that was before I drew this lot.

8.              My staff did look at it. Shortly after, they came back to me, and they did even better. They said, let's do this. We will support women. We will use Healthier SG. When you consult your General Practitioner (GP), the GP will assess if this woman has a high risk of breast cancer based on family history. If yes, we will support you and provide subsidy for you to go through a genetic test.

9.              And the genetic test will detect if you have variants such as BRCA1 and BRCA2 that may lead to higher risk of breast cancer. And if yes, we will also support the preventive measures, including preventive mastectomy, and you can claim insurance (MediShield Life).

10.          So I announced that. I am not announcing new policy. This was announced in Budget this year, shortly after I drew the lot. And I would say we should not stop there.

11.          Beyond this, I think we should really look at sarcopenia and osteoporosis, which women are much more susceptible to, especially after menopause. We should also use Healthier SG to make bone density tests and other muscular tests more accessible to women, and then provide the resources to help women build up muscle and strengthen their bones. This is something that we will hopefully announce soon.

12.          Later on, sometime in the middle of the year, June or July, I got a note from the World Economic Forum. And I do not know why. Out of the blue, they asked, do I want to be the co-chair of the Global Alliance for Women's Health? And I will co-chair it with the Spanish Minister for Health, who is a woman, and also the President of Gender Equality Division of the Gates Foundation.

13.          After drawing this lot, I thought, better say yes. But professionally, I thought that it is a very meaningful platform to contribute. Indeed, I agreed, and we just had our first meeting in New York recently. I think they are looking towards Singapore to provide some thought leadership on women's health.

14.          I am working closely with the National University of Singapore (NUS), working closely with Professor Chong Yap Seng, who has started the Centre for Women’s Health Innovation in NUS.

15.          And then, suddenly I got another invitation from Ms Jennie Chua saying, "Can you be the Guest-of-Honour for the Her World Women of the Year dinner?" This award has been going on for more than 30 years and I have been a Minister for 11, 12 years. This is the first time I got invited, you know. This year, a special year, after I drew this lot, I got invited.

16.          On a personal note, 2026 is also the year I lost my mother-in-law, and my wife lost her mother. And in that moment of loss, everyone around her who knew her realised what an immense impact she had on the whole family, influencing everyone, universally loved, and really held the family together across generations. And people like her are the unsung heroes of Singapore society.

17.          And on a lighter note, our two daughters, both in their mid-20s, are both dating. For some reason, this year they started talking about having a family, perhaps one day getting married, and having children.

18.          It is quite significant. To me, it is more significant than the day they took their first step, or the day they said their first word. So I told them, "You want children? I am not ready to be a grandfather."

19.          All in all, 2026 has been a very special year because, for me, it is my year of the women. I think so long as women continue to be physiologically different from men, which I think it will be, there must continue to be a health agenda specifically looking at women's health.

20.          So long as societal expectations of women's roles continue to be different from that of men, governments around the world must continue to build up systems, structures, and networks to support women juggling their various roles.

21.          It means infant care, childcare, understanding employers, and government policies that help women grapple with their dilemmas, juggle their varied responsibilities.

22.          And so long as the above two factors continue to hold true, there will continue to be a role for events like this one, where we honour the achievements of women, so that young girls looking at the Women of the Year will be inspired by what is possible as they grow up.

23.          Congratulations to our winners tonight. May you continue to inspire, together with past award winners, all young boys and young girls for many years to come.

24.          Thank you.