Family Planning A Need In Singapore

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31042, 23 April 1966, Page 2

Family Planning A Need In Singapore

[By a reporter of “The Press’ who recently visited South-east Asia on the inaugural flight of Atr New Zealand’s service to Singapore].

An apartment to house a family, mainly in multi-storey buildings, is being completed every 43 minutes in Singapore—an island republic which contains two million people in an area 24 miles by 17 miles. A child is born on the island every nine minutes.

Under such circumstances, the Government support and interest in family planning, particularly in the contraceptive pill, is understandable. The population pressure cannot be ignored. The Government in 1965, made a grant of 100,000 Malay dollars (£17,500) and ran 29 of the 31 family planning clinics on the island. The Family Planning Association runs the other two clinics.

The Government of Singapore this year will step up both the financial aid and number of clinics. Clinics are being opened in new housing estates round the city centre at Queenstown, MacPherson road and Cantonment road.

Diaphram contraceptives are not popular with the poorer classes, and the sheath is still the favourite method. Nevertheless, oral contraceptives are catching up. An economic bar to the use of the pill—many families live on the equivalent of £lB to £2O a month—may be overcome by a Government subsidy which is under consideration at present. Because of the Government participation in family planning, expansion in the use of the pill has been very rapid. The purpose of family planning is explained through official sources, such as hospitals and health clinics, to husbands and wives.

The Family Planning Association in New Zealand now receives financial assistance through lottery grants. In Australia the association has received no support from State or Federal sources.

In Singapore, familyplanning has the support of the Government at Ministerial level.