Eight in ten women aged 20 to 39 and one in two older women aged 40 to 69 are active in the workforce.
As productive contributors in the workforce, Senior Minister of State for Health Dr Amy Khor strongly emphasised the need to take health promotion programmes closer to women at the workplaces.
Dr Khor was one of the speakers at "Healthier Women, Healthier Workforce" held at NTUC Centre. The first of its kind, the occasion marked the collaboration between the Health Promotion Board (HPB) and NTUC Women's Development Secretariat (WDS).
To stay true to its commitment of helping women earn a better living so they can live a better life, a total of 1,700 women union leaders will actively set about encouraging their unionised branches to sign up for the Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) Grant. The grant aims to support women's health programmes and assist employers to offer women-centric health promotion programmes to their employees.
'Through our pool of 1,700 women union leaders, we hope to work closely with HPB to reach out to our unionised companies to advocate and promote the benefits of the Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) Grant for women at workplaces. It is important that our women workers are protected and are provided with such support from their employers. We hope that more companies can tap on this grant, which will in turn benefit more women workers,' shared NTUC Women's Development Secretariat Director Sylvia Choo.
In a National Health Survey conducted in 2010, statistics revealed that although a majority of women respondents are aware of preventive health screenings such as mammography and pap smear, only about half of them have undergone such screenings.
'As we move forward, we hope companies understand that investing in the health of their female employees through the Workplace Health Promotion Grant will in turn help them achieve greater productivity in the long term,' Dr Khor added.
She urged more employers to take advantage of the grant to make cancer screening more accessible and affordable to employees - with cervical cancer and breast cancer ranking amongst the top ten most common cancers amongst Singaporean women.
The event is only the tip of the iceberg as NTUC WDS plans to stage health talks and dialogues targeted at women leaders.
HPB hopes to reach out to 100 workplaces by 2015 through this campaign.
Original article written by Naseema Banu Maideen, and can be found in NTUC This Week (20 September 2013)
