Speech by Second Minister for Defence, Mr Chan Chun Sing, at the Opening Ceremony of the Singapore Armed Forces Cardiac Fitness Centre

Good morning
Mr Peter Seah, Chairman of Singhealth
Professor Ivy Ng, Group CEO of SingHealth
Singhealth Family Members
National Heart Centre Family
Chief of Defence Force and
Fellow Colleagues from MINDEF and SAF,

First, let me thank all of you for being here today. More importantly, let me thank all the people who have worked very hard behind the scenes to bring this to fruition. I know Chief of Medical Corps Rear-Admiral (DR) Kang Wee Lee and his team in the Headquarters Medical Corps (HQMC) and many members from the National Heart Centre have been quietly working behind the scenes. So thank you very much for your hard work and I'm sure you will bring this centre to greater heights.

Today's ceremony to inaugurate this new partnership is another step in our long journey to provide better healthcare for our servicemen. In the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), we have always been taught that if we take care of our soldiers, our soldiers will take care of our mission. And that remains true. Today is part of our ongoing journey to provide better care for our servicemen.

The way the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) and the SAF have chosen to do this has been quite different from some militaries, where the military healthcare system is designed separately and independently from the civilian healthcare system. That is because their soldiers and civilians live in two different communities and two different worlds. Their system is quite separate one from the other.

But this is not the way MINDEF, the SAF nor Singapore has designed our healthcare system. For a very simple reason - we are a city state. There is no reason for us to design a separate and independent military healthcare system that is distinct from the rest of the civilian healthcare system. There is also no reason for us to make a distinction between servicemen and civilians. Every one of our servicemen, especially Operationally Ready National Servicemen (NSmen), is a civilian. MINDEF and the SAF's philosophy has always been to design our healthcare system to be integrated as part of the national system. In this way, the SAF can benefit from the advances and the capacity of the civilian healthcare system. Likewise, the civilian system can also draw upon the capabilities and capacity of the SAF. It is a win-win situation. It is also the way that we do justice to both the defence and health budgets. With collaboration, we stretch the defence and health budgets that much more.

We have seen many examples of such collaborations over the years. For example, HQMC is exploring a partnership with Jurong Health to provide training for our emergency responders. Parkway-Shenton has come onboard to provide experienced doctors to come into the SAF camps to guide some of our new doctors in the care of our soldiers. Similarly, when we were digging the first MRT tunnel, the naval hyperbaric medicine team was also part of the national team to take care of the issues that might arise from digging tunnels deep underground. This is how we have pooled our resources over the years to serve our servicemen and fellow Singaporeans better. Today marks yet another important step in this philosophy of cooperation.

We are very happy to see how the National Heart Centre has come together with HQMC to build this new SAF cardiac fitness centre. This new centre will provide a one-stop service for all our servicemen for any issues relating to cardiac fitness. For the soldiers, it will translate to shorter waiting time and more comprehensive healthcare checks, without them having to run to a few different places. For the doctors, it is also an opportunity for everyone to level up the skills and keep current with the latest. On the research front, we can also do much more when we pool our resources together. The sharing and analyses of data will allow us to make our cardiac screening - not just for the SAF but for the entire Singapore - better and faster. I'm sure HQMC, Chief of Medical Corps and his team will continue to look for more opportunities to collaborate with national healthcare institutions to bring to fruition our concept of a closely intertwined military medicine and national healthcare system. This allows us to leverage each other both during peace and war time.

I look forward to more of such joint ventures where we take care of our servicemen while making good use of the finite healthcare resources in both military and civilian systems. On that note, I would like to congratulate Chief of Medical Corps and the National Heart Centre team for bringing this to fruition. I look forward to your continued support and hard work to make this centre a centre of excellence for cardiac screening for MINDEF, the SAF and for the wider good of all Singaporeans, including many of our NSmen. Thank you very much.

• SAF Launches One-Stop Cardiac Screening Facility

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• SAF Launches One-Stop Cardiac Screening Facility