Speech by Minister of State for Health, Dr Amy Khor, at the joint opening ceremony of Rehabtech Asia and Singapore Rehabilitation Conference

Honoured guests,
Distinguished partners,
Friends from the media,
Ladies and gentlemen,

1. Good morning. It gives me great pleasure to join you here at the joint opening ceremony of the 2nd Singapore Rehabilitation Conference, held alongside the inaugural Asia Pacific NeuroRehabilitation Symposium and RehabTech Asia trade exhibition. Let me begin by extending a warm welcome to all rehabilitation doctors, therapists, professors, and allied health professionals from Singapore and around the world. I am happy to see such a good turnout and am heartened by the strong interest to share knowledge, ideas and experiences about rehabilitation care.

At the Conference last year, I touched on how rehabilitation medicine is essential to meeting the healthcare and population challenges that lie ahead for Singapore. This is still pertinent today. As our population ages, there will be more patients with chronic conditions such as stroke or who have suffered traumatic injuries. As such, rehabilitation will always remain relevant, and become a key aspect of our healthcare system. To ensure that patients have a positive rehabilitative experience and post-rehab quality of life, we need a systematic and holistic approach to improving functional outcomes, reducing dependence, and enabling integration back into the community.

2. I am encouraged to know that our healthcare institutions today assiduously adopt an interdisciplinary approach to rehabilitation medicine, by having our medical doctors work alongside and closely with our nurses and allied health professionals in improving care for Singaporeans.

In the same light, I am equally pleased that Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) and Singapore General Hospital (SGH) have come together once again not only to organise this Conference, but also to deliver an even more comprehensive programme featuring more topics on this very important subject, and have invited many international speakers to share their knowledge and experiences.

3. Our institutions have rolled out various commendable initiatives in the field of rehabilitation medicine. At last year’s conference, I spoke about how I was amazed by the use of robotic and virtual reality technologies to assist patients in their recovery process, and to do so in an engaging and interactive way. These technologies have great efficacy in accelerating patients’ rehabilitation.

For example, in the Centre for Advanced Rehabilitation Therapeutics (CART) in Tan Tock Seng Hospital, interactive computer gaming such as Nintendo Wii is incorporated into conventional rehabilitative exercises to train upper limb function, gait and driving assessment in patients with neurological disabilities. At the same time, Tan Tock Seng Hospital is collaborating with Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) to conduct research into brain-computer-interface to facilitate motor recovery.

Recently, Singhealth and SGH physiotherapists and orthopaedic surgeons have also helped develop a new device, called the Mobile Lumbar Traction Unit, which patients with back ailments can put on like a backpack, and undergo therapy even at home and while continuing their daily activities.

This will bring greater convenience to patients, as they need not travel frequently to the hospital for therapy.

4. I believe that conferences such as this one allow us to exchange knowledge, thoughts and insights on exciting developments and can inspire us to further improve standards of care, thereby enabling a better quality of life for all patients.

5. However, knowledge platforms alone will not help us achieve the integrated care environment that we are nurturing, especially for the aged. Given that one in five Singaporeans will be 65 years old and above by 2030, the development of community-based care is increasingly crucial.

The Ministry of Health is thus keen to work closely with partners to further build up rehabilitative care and its supporting services in the community, which would better enable our seniors to age-in-place within an environment familiar to them.

6. For instance, the Government is building 39 Senior Care Centres (SCCs) by 2016. These are integrated day care centres that will provide more seamless care for our seniors in a single setting. They not only provide social care but also healthcare services like community rehabilitation for those who need it, such as after an acute event like stroke or hip fracture. We plan to site these SCCs within the community covering all regions across Singapore, thereby making the care more accessible for our seniors and their caregivers.

We are also expanding transport subsidies for wheelchair ambulant seniors under the enhanced senior mobility and enabling fund so that we can help seniors to get to these centers to access rehabilitation service. This will facilitate our seniors to age-in-place successfully and gracefully within the community.

7. Beyond aged care, we recognise that care for patients requiring rehabilitation often spans across multiple settings, from the restructured hospitals to the community hospitals to day care centres. Thus, the Ministry of Health is developing Integrated Care Pathways to improve continuity of care and coordination across disciplines and settings, to help patients with specific conditions, such as hip fracture and stroke, transit more seamlessly along the healthcare continuum.

We will continue to support the training and strategic development of the healthcare professionals through the Health Manpower Development Plan (HMDP).

8. The field of rehabilitation medicine is certainly set to scale greater heights. Let me congratulate the event organisers and partners for an outstanding programme that has been painstakingly put together. Platforms like these are invaluable opportunities for us to learn from each other. By sharing and collaborating on topics such as technology, multi-country experiences and innovative approaches to rehabilitation care, I am sure that we can bring together the best minds, and the surest hands to co-create tomorrow’s solutions.

9. With that, I wish you an excellent Conference ahead. Thank you.