In conjunction with  World Consumer Rights Day, Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE) is partnering Pharmaceutical Society of Singapore (PSS) in this the event to bring to the open the issues about healthcare products & services.

PSS & CASE have focused on healthcare consumers to heighten their awareness & understanding about health products, services and their rights for transparent, itemized bills & choices between proprietary vs. generic drugs. The awareness programmes hope to furhter empower patients and on these 4 issues:
 
• educating the public/consumers about the 3 chronic diseases (hypertension, hypercholestrolaemia & diabetes)
• encouraging the public to learn about the common drugs for the above 3 chronic diseases, the differences & option between proprietary & generic, 
• increasing awareness about healthcare bill, esp. to encourage public to request for itemized bill from clinics/doctors & rights to ask for a prescription in order to shop around for the best deal of drugs in town;
• provide drug reference pricing (by range) of common drugs for the above 3 diseases from 3 chain pharmacies in CASE's website (http://www.case.org.sg/central3.htm#DrugSurvey )
 
There will also be a public forum to be held on Mar 31 where PSS, Singapore Medical Association (SMA) & Health Sciences Authority (HSA) will also talk about various subject matters on healthcare and medicines. CASE issued a press release to announce this collaborative efforts with PSS on Mar 14, 2007. A copy of the press release can be read here.
 
It is a significant project, moving forward, to partner with CASE in reaching out to patients, who also make up a significant, but hitherto a relatively "silent" subset of the consumer population. Purchases and consumption of health products or services also constitutes a significant portion of economic activities. This trend is further fueled by the greater access to healthcare products & services plus a longer life expectancy in the rapidly ageing population.

PSS would like to thank Guardian, Unity & Watson's for supporting us by sharing the drug pricing unreservedly.

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