The Neighbourhood Health Service 2015
Published: 02 Sep 2015
The Neighbourhood Health Service (NHS) is a local community service project initiated by medical and nursing students of the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine (NUS Medicine) and Social Work students of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), National University of Singapore (NUS). This year’s NHS was held on 5 and 6 September 2015 at Block 15A Marine Terrace.
First started in 2008, the health service aims to identify and integrate elderly residents from lower socio-economic stratas who have fallen out of the healthcare system back into it through screening and detailed follow-ups.
In its health screening efforts, the NHS provides free annual door-to-door and centralised basic health screening for residents aged 40 and above living in one-room or two-room rental flats, to help identify those who are at risk of chronic diseases, and to initiate early intervention for residents with chronic conditions such as diabetes mellitus, hypertension, hyperlipidemia and cancer.
This year, as part of the NUS CARES initiative, NHS worked with the Chua Thian Poh Community Leadership Programme to conduct analysis on the Social Return on Investments. The findings will help the health service serve the community’s needs better in the years to come.
Over the past nine years, the NHS has grown substantially in its efforts to help the poor and the aged in Singapore. In addition to the centralised health screening service, the NHS team also visited residents of Marine Terrace at their homes. This year’s NHS also saw the addition of two components to the usual NHS screening components: free mammogram services and dental screening services.
