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17 Sep 2007
Question No: 357
Question
Name of the Person: Ms Sylvia Lim, Non-Constituency
To ask the Minister for Health whether the Government will consider mandating that signages in public hospitals be in the four official languages so as to make public hospitals more navigable to those not literate in English.
Reply
Reply From MOH
Proper signages contribute to a good hospital design. They allow patients and visitors to move within the hospital with ease, without getting lost. There are several elements to an effective signage system. First, there must be sufficient signages. Second, signages should be prominent and clearly understood. Third, they must cater to the different language abilities of our patients and visitors.
As hospitals become more complicated buildings with multiple departments and service centres, hospital signage design has evolved into a specialty and a hospital planning team will normally include a hospital signage consultant as an important member. This is the approach we take in our design of public hospitals. Over the years, we have learnt a lot from experience and used the feedback to enhance our hospital signage system. Our current hospital signages can be further improved but generally they are adequate. We are open to suggestions and our hospitals will respond to feedback where appropriate to make the system better.
In short, we take a practical approach to this problem, rather than insisting that all signages should be in the four official languages. Indeed, a good pictorial signage is often more effective than one in words. As far as possible, we rely on pictorial signages
But signages in words cannot be avoided all together. In such cases, we use all four languages where practical. Sometimes, this is not feasible as doing so will result in a cluttered and unwieldy signage which will then be ineffective.
That said, we are mindful of the needs of those who cannot read English and will continue to enhance our signages to make them more user-friendly.