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WITH the recent news on improving our health-care system, I would like to highlight an issue that is seldom raised, an issue regarding subsidies for prosthetic limbs in Singapore.
In other developed nations, amputees are given prosthetic limbs based on their activity levels and ability to use artificial limbs.
However, there is no such practice here.
Instead, subsidies are limited to basic prostheses with the lowest functionality. Imagine this scenario: A young active 20-year-old amputee and an elderly 60-year-old amputee making a prosthesis each for their daily use.
It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the younger amputee needs a prosthesis that is able to give him higher functionality and mobility, while the elderly amputee might need one with a lower functionality level.
In this case, both users should be entitled to subsidised prosthetic limbs as the artificial limbs are meant to restore functionality as close as possible to their able- bodied state.
If other developed nations are already doing it, Singapore, also a developed nation, should be able to do likewise and even better.
Leow Chen Hai
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