Debated in Parliament on 16 Oct 2024.
Assoc Prof Razwana Begum Abdul Rahim asked the Minister for Social and Family Development (a) what mechanisms are in place to ensure that foster carers are able to access all appropriate and relevant health information about the children and young people in their care; and (b) what mechanisms are in place to ensure that the birth parents do not impede access to the health information, including information stored on the Health Buddy app.
Sir, If parents refuse to provide the information, MSF’s Child Protective Service can exercise powers under the Children and Young Persons Act to obtain and share medical information of the child, if needed.
Since fostering is a temporary arrangement, foster parents do not have direct access to the foster child’s health records via HealthHub or Health Buddy applications, as access remains tied to the birth parents’ Singpass. However, foster parents are issued a letter from MSF that identifies them as caregivers under the Ministry’s fostering scheme. This letter facilitates communication with healthcare professionals and ensures the child’s medical needs are properly addressed.
Assoc Prof Razwana Begum.
Sir, I appreciate the efforts by the Ministry and the social workers for their continued support of foster parents. However, foster parents do face delays, especially in healthcare treatment, mainly because of the procedural challenges. Sometimes, it is temporary, but sometimes, foster children are in the care of the foster parents for a longer period of time. Under those circumstances, there have been situations where a child's appointment has been cancelled by the natural parents because they have access to the Health Buddy and, because of this delay, sometimes, the child needs to be prepped before he or she goes to the hospital. These are some of the challenges that are happening on the ground.
My question is: can there be more support given via MSF and the Ministry of Health (MOH) in terms of addressing these delays and maybe temporarily preventing the natural parents from having access or cancelling the appointment of their children on Health Hub or Health Buddy? So, that is one suggestion or question.
The other thing is whether it is possible to have a dedicated health liaison person that social workers can work with MOH, because some of these children do need a lot of help and foster parents can be running around. So, greater help and greater assistance will be wonderful between the two Ministries.
Sir, I thank Assoc Prof Razwana for her supplementary questions. I will take the two questions together.
Every foster child is issued a medical fee exemption card (MFEC) and this covers standard medical or dental treatment charges as well as compulsory immunisations and medications. So, in terms of getting access to these standard treatments and medication, I do not think the natural parents will be an obstacle to the process.
What happens in every foster placement is that there will be a foster care worker that is assigned to support both the foster parents as well as the foster child, and they will have at least one face-to-face contact every two months. Every foster parent can raise any concerns or difficulties that they face during these sessions. What we can do is that we can continually engage foster parents. Every once in a while, I will also get feedback from foster parents as to how we can improve the process to help facilitate their work in taking care of the foster child. We will continue this engagement and make sure that, wherever support is required, we will render them as soon as possible.
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