Neighbourhood Health Service 2019
Published: 10 Sep 2019
The first leg of the annual Neighbourhood Health Service (NHS) 2019 at Kampong Glam on 6 and 7 September 2019 saw medical students bringing together 16 community partners in the healthcare sector to conduct integrated health screening right at the doorsteps of residents-in-need.
The NHS is an annual student-led flagship community health project by the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. While it remains an initiative led by NUS Medicine students, the collaboration has expanded and NHS 2019 now involves students from other medical schools in Singapore – namely the NTU Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine and Duke-NUS Medical School – as well as social work, nursing, physiotherapy and occupational therapy students from NUS Social Work, NUS Nursing, Nanyang Polytechnic and the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT).
This year, residents are screened via multi-level tests in five distinct categories:
- Chronic diseases (e.g. diabetes, hypertension)
- Functional modalities (e.g. vision, oral health, hearing)
- Fall prevention (fall-risk screening, physiotherapy education)
- Cancer (e.g. colorectal, cervical)
- Mental health (dementia, depression)
NHS 2019 also marks the inaugural collaboration with students from SIT Physiotherapy to conduct fall-risk screening for elderly residents. The fall-risk assessment identifies elderly residents at risk of falling and students then teach them simple exercises, with personalised education, to raise awareness on fall prevention.
NHS does not stop at just screening residents – with the help of the community partners, a robust follow up programme is also included to ensure sustainability and continuity of care for residents.
Dr Tan Lai Yong, Director for Outreach and Community Engagement at the College of Alice & Peter Tan, NUS; and Senior Lecturer at NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health said, “NHS 2019 is a holistic, community-based health screening aligned with nationwide screening efforts.”
“Serving over almost 6,000 residents in 10 different districts, NHS is the only student-led community health project that has such nationwide reach and impact.”
– Dr Tan Lai Yong
NHS 2019 will continue with the second leg taking place at Queenstown (Leng Kee CC) on 5 and 6 October 2019.
WATCH: Event highlights of NHS 2019 @ Kampong Glam
