Highlights from the Honorary Secretary

SMA President on Healthier SG White Paper

SMA President and Nominated Member of Parliament Dr Tan Yia Swam spoke in Parliament during the debate on the White Paper on Healthier SG. She highlighted three challenges healthcare workers face: IT support, manpower, and respect for healthcare workers.

Video clip can be viewed at the link below: https://bit.ly/3ynuxyI.

Resuscitation/emergency drugs

SMA received feedback that some doctors faced difficulty in ordering small quantities of resuscitation drugs, as part of their fulfilment for clinic licensing purposes.

We understand that the National Healthcare Group pharmacy has a one-stop service for ordering of such drugs.

Please visit https://bit.ly/3C5yAkj for the order form.

National Drug Formulary

The Ministry of Health has created a National Drug Formulary (NDF) website https://www.ndf.gov.sg, with the following key features:

• General drug information (subsidy information and financing scheme, drug guidance for subsidy, general availability in public healthcare institutions, postmarketing information).
• Product-specific details such as drug description and locally approved clinical information (indication, dosage, contraindication) where available.
• Advanced search function where filters on drug guidance, post-marketing information, subsidy information and forensic classification can be applied to narrow the search results for active ingredient(s), product name, registration number, pharmacological classification, indication, licence holder or country of manufacturer.
• NDF A-to-Z listing of active ingredients to easily find all drug monographs available on the NDF website.
• NDF listing of pharmacological classifications to find drug monograph information categorised based on the World Health Organisation Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical classification system of the active ingredients.

• "Compare drugs" function to view a side-by-side comparison of general drug information of two different active ingredients.

Information provided on the NDF website is intended to act as a guide for healthcare professionals, such as doctors, pharmacists and nurses, in prescribing drugs safely for their patients. The public can also use the NDF website to search for general and clinical information about the drugs.