7th SNEC National Eye Care Day

02 Dec 2006

By Mr Heng Chee How, Minister of State for Health

Venue: Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC)

Prof Ang Chong Lye - Director, SNEC,

Organising Chairman - Dr Zainah Alsagoff,

Ladies and gentlemen,

I am delighted to join you at this launch of the 7th SNEC National Eye Care Day.

Sight is one of the 5 senses, and all of us know how important having good eyesight is if we are to function well and enjoy life fully.

For example, if you are a student and has poor eyesight, and that is not corrected and well managed, then your studies must be adversely affected to some extent. Because you will find it harder to read, to see what is going on in the classroom and around you. If your studies suffer, you will pay the price for it the rest of your lives.

Similarly, if you are a worker and your eyesight fades, it will surely affect you. If you depend on your eyesight to do detailed work, and if your deteriorating eyesight is not corrected or compensated for by workplace technology, then it will erode your employability by and by. Even if you do not need to use your eyesight intensively at work, declining eyesight or increasing eye problems must affect your productivity and performance. You will pay the price in terms of work rewards and prospects.

And of course, looking at our fast aging population, we should be concerned about how poor eyesight and eye diseases can endanger the health and safety of the elderly, or even of the not-so-old. Many falls and fractures among the elderly happen because they stumble, trip and fall over things that they did not see. And chronic diseases like diabetes, if not well managed, also harms the eyesight and can cause blindness. Then there are other things like glaucoma, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration which will ambush more people along the way. When that happens, the physical, emotional and financial strain on the person and his family will be huge. 

For all these reasons, we have to take eye care seriously. 

As in all things, prevention is better than cure. Better in 2 ways, namely, dealing with the problem while it is still small, and dealing with the problem before it gets too expensive.

This is why early screening is important. It will help us pick up diseases and treat them promptly, and save us much grief later on. 

This is precisely what we are trying to achieve on this 7th National Eye Care Day organised by the Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC). Since its inception in 2000, the National Eye Care Day screenings have already helped 10,000 people. I understand that for this year, SNEC, working in partnership with all public hospitals, will offer free eye screenings to about 3,000 elderly persons and health screening to 2,000 senior citizens this year. 

SNEC is also collaborating with MOH and MCYS in a project called ElderVision, to train the staff of eldercare providers to become more aware about eye care for the elderly. More than 200 people from 43 such organisations have already benefited from such training, and more will join them in time to come.

I commend SNEC and all your partners for undertaking a most important and worthwhile endeavour. Your efforts will help many in our midst see their world more clearly, work longer, and live with confidence and peace of mind.

Thank you.