#SGMHM Policy Watch 2023

#SGMHMPolicyWatch is an initiative by SG Mental Health Matters that monitors parliamentary proceedings that are related to, or address mental health policies in Singapore. 

This report is a follow-up from Part 1 published in February 2023, with a further review of parliamentary questions (PQs) filed by Members of Parliament (MPs) in the year 2022. We conducted a manual search of all order papers and a year-end review of PQs using the Hansard search engine to identify PQs that indirectly addressed mental health through an intersectional lens (‘intersectional mental health’ issues). Intersectional mental health issues included search terms that covered suicide, self-harm, mood disorders and vulnerable groups (as identified through our 2022 public consultation).

Key findings include:

• A total of 277 PQs (including supplementary questions) were asked about intersectional mental health issues in 2022.
• A total of 212 PQs (excluding supplementary questions and duplicates from Part 1 of our report) were asked about intersectional mental health issues out of 2515 total PQs (8.4%) that were raised in Parliament in 2022. Including 59 direct references (excluding supplementary questions) from Part 1 of our report, a total of 271 (10.8%) of questions out of 2515 PQs asked in 2022 were relating to mental health.
• Intersectional mental health-related PQs were asked every month where Parliament had a sitting, but peaked in October 2022 (n=48).
• While most intersectional mental health PQs were addressed to the Ministry of Health (n=115, 41.5%), a majority (the remaining 58.5%) of PQs were addressed to other ministries, like the Ministry of Social and Family Development (n=58, 20.9%), Ministry of Education (n=20, 7.2%), and other ministries.
• When it came to intersectional mental health issues, PQs were filed by MPs from all political parties, including nominated MPs (NMPs). People’s Action Party (PAP) MP Louis Ng Kok Kwang (n=46), Workers Party (WP) MP Leon Perera (n=17), as well as WP MP Gerald Giam and PAP MP Murali Pillai (both n=15) filed the most PQs on intersectional mental health issues.

Click here to access Part 2 of our report on Parliamentary Questions directly relating to mental health

#SGMHMPolicyWatch is an initiative by SG Mental Health Matters that monitors parliamentary proceedings that are related to, or address mental health policies in Singapore. 

This report provides a snapshot of the parliamentary questions (PQs) filed by Members of Parliament (MPs) in the year 2022. We conducted a manual search of all order papers and a year-end review of PQs using the Hansard search engine to identify PQs that directly addressed mental health. Key findings include: 

• A total of 59 PQs were asked with a direct and explicit reference to mental health out of 2515 questions (2.3%).
• Mental health-related PQs were asked every month where Parliament had a sitting, but peaked in January 2022 and October 2022.
• While most PQs were addressed to the Ministry of Health (n=24, 40.7%), a majority (the remaining 59.3%) of PQs were addressed to other ministries, like the Ministry of Education (n=11, 18.6%), Ministry of Social and Family Development (n=9, 15.3%), and other ministries.
• PQs were filed by MPs from all political parties, including nominated MPs (NMPs). Dr Wan Rizal (n=9, 15.3%), Dr Shahira Abdullah (n=6, 10.2%), and Ms Nadia Ahmad Samdin (n=5, 8.5%) filed the most PQs with a direct and explicit reference to mental health.
• Most PQs were filed by first-term MPs (n=40, 67.8%). Geographically, MPs who filed mental health-related PQs were clustered in several constituencies, while on the flipside, some constituencies were underrepresented.

Click here to access Part 1 of our report on Parliamentary Questions directly relating to mental health

Interested in keeping up with or advocating for mental health policies in Singapore? Not certain where to begin? The SG Mental Health Matters team hopes to bring you the most up-to-date and relevant parliamentary proceedings on mental health.

Our vision is that #SGMHMPolicyWatch would help to make mental health policy a more accessible topic for everyone! There's no action too small in the journey towards structural change to improve and address mental health. 

The SG Mental Health Matters team provides a list of these proceedings, as well as updates the respective Ministries' responses to them for public access. These are updated on a monthly basis when Parliament convenes. Our database can be acccessed in the link below:

Click here to access the database for #SGMHMPolicyWatch

Parliament:   New measures to boost mental health in the community   

 The Straits Times, Mar 2017

 Read the related Parliamentary Speech here 

• Maiden Speech: Workplace and Employee Wellbeing