Transcript of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s speech at St Andrew’s Mission Hospital-Singapore Anglican Community Services 100th anniversary charity gala dinner

Dr Amy Khor
Senior Minister of State for Health

The Right Reverend Rennis Ponniah
President of St Andrew’s Mission Hospital (SAMH) and Singapore Anglican Community Services (SACS)

Boards of the SAMH and SACS

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

Congratulations on your 100^th birthday! It is a remarkable milestone. You joined a very select group of centenarians and even organisations in Singapore. It attests to your excellent service and your strong community support.

Singapore’s Social Support System

100 years ago in 1913, Dr Charlotte Ferguson-Davie who was the wife of the first Bishop of Singapore established the St Andrew’s Medical Mission – the precursor to the SAMH. At that time, Singapore’s system of social support was pretty basic. The colonial government funded some social services but the missions and the community - philanthropists, clans, churches – sponsored many programmes for education, for healthcare, for financial assistance to the poor.

As the years passed, Singapore developed and our services, our amenities, our comprehensive social safety nets improved, particularly after Independence. In healthcare, we have built new facilities, we have improved public sanitation, and we have transformed public health.

In our social assistance, the Government has worked with community partners to provide targeted help to those who needed it, at the same time keeping social spending affordable and sustainable. These efforts have borne fruit. So today, Singaporeans enjoy good quality and affordable healthcare and we have progressively expanded our social assistance to help more segments of society.

St Andrew’s Mission Hospital and Singapore Anglican Community Services

The Anglican community has taken part in this journey with the rest of us. It began with the St Andrew’s Medical Dispensary in Bencoolen Street. It has progressively expanded to an inpatient hospital – the St Andrew’s Mission Hospital, a children’s hospital - St Andrew’s Orthopaedic Hospital for Children and a community hospital - St Andrew’s Community Hospital at Simei.

Now, it is doing more for the elderly as our society ages, for example through day rehab and home care services. It is working closely with the Government to deliver integrated care, for example St Andrew’s Community Hospital is part of the Eastern Health Alliance, and it is together with Changi General Hospital, the regional polyclinics and GPs. In fact, it is physically connected with a bridge to Changi General Hospital and operating in a very closely, integrated way.

Besides healthcare, the Anglican Church also provides other valuable social services through the SACS. For example, you run psychiatric rehabilitation centres to help psychiatrically ill clients to reintegrate back into society. You have a family care centre which supports vulnerable families and a senior activity centre at Kampong Glam which brings joy to the elderly. Your services and missions and hospitals have helped many individuals. For example, one of them is Josiah, 18 years old, who has severe autism. When he first enrolled in St Andrew’s Autism School, he had behavioural issues. His teacher Selamat noticed that he was calmer after PE, so Selamat made Josiah run every day before class. But Josiah would not run unless Selamat ran with him. They worked at it and Selamat ran with him, and after a year, Josiah completed the 10km Standard Chartered Run and the 5km Terry Fox Run – and he did it alone! Quite an achievement for both Josiah and Selamat!

There have been many other volunteers who have contributed time and energy to your good works. I name just one picked at random, Ms Shanti Sathasivam, now in her late seventies who has been volunteering with SACH for almost twenty years! Because she believed in its mission and was inspired by the care and concern shown by the staff, so she has preserved and continued to do good work year after year. Selamat and Shanti are here tonight – well done, thank you very much indeed!

I am very happy that the Anglican community is doing so many things to support and be part of our wider Singapore society. Religious institutions play a very important role in our society. They not only give spiritual and moral guidance to the flock, but also tackle social problems, provide community services, and complement Government programmes. Thus helping the less fortunate, and strengthening the moral fibre of our society.

We are a multi-racial, multi-religious society so we have to be a neutral and secular Government. But it does not mean we do not engage religious groups fully in the life of our society. It does not mean that the Government will not work with religious groups to serve Singaporeans, especially to meet community needs and solve social problems.

Strengthening  Social Safety Nets in Singapore

We are now in a new phase. The Government and the community will be doing more to help individuals in many ways - by sharing the fruits of progress more widely, by keeping paths upwards open and our society mobile and by strengthening social safety nets.

One example of how we are doing this is in healthcare and it is in the plan for MediShield-Life. This is going to be a major improvement over MediShield - lifetime coverage, including for pre-existing conditions; better protection against very large bills. Because coverage is much better, premiums will have to go up. But premiums will still be affordable, especially for the low-income and elderly. We are doing the public consultation now and should be able to work out the MediShield Life scheme over the next year. The Government will do more to give Singaporeans peace of mind and help you all cope with new challenges - whether it is the growing competition from new economies, whether it is widening income distributions, whether it is greater uncertainty in a globalised world.

The Government will do more but the ultimate test of our success is not how much the Government does or how much we spend, but the outcomes of these programmes. In other words, do citizens enjoy a better quality of life? Are we living longer, are we healthier? Are poor Singa­poreans living in good conditions, better conditions? Are they benefiting from their own efforts and from the country’s progress and from the help schemes which we are working out?

More government is not always better government. You look at the European countries, their model, where their Government is half or more of the economy and many of them are in serious trouble. Similarly, more social spending does not mean better results. You just take healthcare - the Americans spend more on healthcare than anybody else in the world, 18% of GDP – more than four times what we spend in Singapore. We spend about 4% of our GDP on healthcare and yet in Singapore our life expectancy is longer and infant mortality rates are lower. It is the results which count, not how much you spend, not how much the government takes onto itself, but working together, getting the right results – that is what matters. 

So we all have to understand this context – VWOs, community groups, the population, the Government.  And understanding our context in Singapore and adapt our programmes to our circumstances, to make schemes which work for our Singaporeans.

Community partners like SAMH and SACS play important roles complementing Government’s efforts to help the less fortunate. Because however well thought out the Government schemes are, we cannot replace the warmth and personal touch of community organisations and of the volunteers. Our community partners are able to use their personal and community ties to help the needy. They can meet the unique needs of individuals and families, better than any national programmes. So we will continue to work with community organisations to set up and expand social services to meet our society’s needs.

Singaporeans too have to play their part. We are not passengers, we are participants. We are not just being brought along; we are playing our part, pulling our weight. I am very happy to see so many volunteers in the SAMH and SACS, like Shanti – people who have exemplified how we can each contribute towards a better society, individually and collectively. I am also very glad that this dinner tonight is not just for celebration, but also to raise money and that you have raised almost $1 million for charity – well done! These donations will fund outreach efforts by SAMH and SACS, including the new St Andrew’s Nursing Home. It is one way those of us who have done well can continue to give back to the less fortunate.

Conclusion

In 100 years since 1913, Singapore has been completely transformed, thanks to the hard work of our people, thanks to the contribution of our community groups and religious groups, also because we had a Government which had worked well with the people and been able to mobilise and make the country work to good purpose.

Nobody knows what the next 100 years will bring. I am confident nevertheless that we will continue to flourish so long we work together, and continue building a caring and compassionate community. So I look forward to the Anglican community’s support and the support of all Singaporeans for many more years to come.

Thank you very much.  

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