A primary school will be designated to accept deaf children who use sign language from 2018. Currently, such pupils attend classes at Lighthouse School, a special education establishment.

The primary school will be in a central location and further details will be revealed later, the Ministry of Education (MOE) said yesterday as it announced the development.

It will be the first primary school designated to take deaf pupils, although there are already four that cater for them at secondary level, after they pass their Primary School Leaving Examination.

Outram and St Anthony’s Canossian Secondary both cater for students who learn via the oral approach, which focuses on using the spoken language, lip reading and voice training. Balestier Hill and Boon Lay secondaries both cater for sign-language students.

From next year, the latter two schools, which have fewer than 15 such students, will be replaced by Beatty Secondary School in Toa Payoh due to falling student numbers.

In a statement yesterday, the MOE said designated schools have teachers trained to support these students using methods such as sign interpretation, social emotional support and assistive technology devices.

It added: “With a small number of these students (using sign language), locating them in a single designated secondary school will provide students with a greater sense of community, with more opportunities for mutual communication through signing, social interactions and peer support.

“This will also allow better pooling and strengthening of specialised resources within one location.”

The MOE will continue to tap the expertise of the Singapore Association of the Deaf (SADeaf) to increase the number of trained staff in the newly designated schools.

Irene Yee, president of SADeaf, said sign language will be used as the language of conversation and to support instruction for such students in these schools.

ateng@sph.com.sg

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Even without the haze shrouding Singapore, commuters waiting for a bus could still be polluting their lungs.

The tiny particles from vehicle emissions are smaller – and more toxic – than the PM2.5 pollutants dominant during periods of haze, a new study has shown.

“Waiting at the bus stop for only 10 minutes each time may seem innocuous. But these short exposures all add up,” said researcher Erik Velasco who helmed the study.

“A commuter who takes a two-way trip by bus to work for five days per week is actually exposed to these participles for nearly seven hours per month and over three full days per year. This exposure can affect people with existing pulmonary and cardiovascular diseases, among others.”

PM2.5 are pollutant particles measuring less than 2.5 microns in diameter – about one-30th the diameter of a strand of human hair.

They are hazardous because they are small enough to be breathed into the lungs and absorbed into the bloodstream.

Dr Velasco, a research scientist from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology, has found that the particles commuters breathe in while waiting at a bus stop are even smaller – by about 100 times.

At a media briefing yesterday, he said a commuter who makes a two-way bus journey five days a week could be inhaling about 3.5 times more tiny pollutant particles than at an ambient level, which researchers measured at Fort Canning Park.

The findings were significant considering that travel on buses made up almost half the 7.7 million public transport trips every day in 2014, said Dr Velasco, citing Land Transport Authority data.

Steve Yang, specialist in respiratory medicine and consultant at the Raffles Internal Medicine Centre in Raffles Hospital, said the human body has no efficient way to remove particles smaller than 2.5 microns in diameter.

People should not stand near idling buses, he added.

audreyt@sph.com.sg

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A general practitioner who indiscriminately prescribed sleeping pills to 78 patients – even though some showed signs of drug dependence or abuse – has been suspended for four months and fined $15,000.

Joseph Heng, 66, was also penalised for not referring his patients to someone more qualified – such as a specialist or psychiatrist – for further treatment.

He was practising at Heng Clinic & Surgery on Bedok Reservoir Road at the time of the offences.

In a statement yesterday, the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) said a disciplinary tribunal had found him guilty of professional misconduct.

Investigations into the case started in 2011, following a complaint from the Health Sciences Authority to the SMC.

In one case, Dr Heng prescribed 30 tablets of sedative Nitrados for a patient who said that he had been sleeping only four hours a day.

When the man returned 18 days later, Dr Heng prescribed another 30 tablets. In total, he was given 110 tablets over a 71-day period.

Dr Heng ought to have known that the use of such drugs should be limited to four weeks at most, the SMC said in its grounds of decision.

He should also have known to refer the patient to a specialist if the drugs were prescribed beyond a cumulative period of eight weeks.

In mitigation, the counsel for Dr Heng said he “acted out of a genuine desire to help his patients and did not seek to profit”.

They also pointed to his track record of looking after needy patients, doing house calls while charging only nominal fees.

However, the SMC said Dr Heng’s inappropriate prescription of hypnotic medication – that is, sleeping pills – counts as “serious misconduct”.

“The long-term consumption of hypnotics may lead to the development of drug dependence and tolerance by patients,” it added.

“Accordingly, we were of the view that the main sentencing consideration must be one of deterrence.”

Dr Heng’s suspension started yesterday, and will last four months.

linettel@sph.com.sg

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In a bid to boost road safety, taxi drivers will receive alerts whenever they are approaching red lights and speed cameras. Audio and visual warnings will be issued through the mobile display terminals (MDTs) in their cars.

The initiative, announced yesterday, is aimed at reducing the numbers of accidents and traffic violations among cabbies – a group the Traffic Police (TP) have identified as vulnerable owing to the long hours they spend on the road.

The MDT alerts, triggered when the cabbies are about 500m away from a traffic enforcement camera, will be rolled out in over 20,500 taxis from the ComfortDelGro and SMRT fleets.

They account for 74 per cent of taxis here. ComfortDelGro will update the MDTs of its 17,000-strong fleet from next month while SMRT will push it out from next year in its 3,500 taxis.

MDTs are already installed in most taxis and cabbies use them to take bookings or get updates from their companies.

They run a combined 7,300 taxis.

TP commander Sam Tee said: “TP sees the taxi drivers as a vulnerable group on the road partly because they spend many hours on the road.”

The new MDT feature will allow cabbies “to be alerted… drive safe, and not get into traffic summons situations”. He added that cabbies will also get real-time updates of nearby traffic accidents.

Land Transport Authority data showed that most cab firms were unable to consistently meet a safety service standard – that there should be no more than 0.02 accident per 100,000km clocked each.

Over a six-month period from April to September last year, SMRT failed the standard thrice, Premier and Prime each fell short twice, and Comfort, once.

CityCab, which is run by ComfortDelGro, and Trans-Cab passed the criterion for all six months.

Edna Tan, head of partner relations at SMRT Taxis, said cabbies beating the red light is a major cause of accidents. The new MDT feature will hopefully address this problem, she added.

Taxi drivers have to pay their firms between $3,000 and $5,000 when they meet with an accident. “So one accident itself will actually wipe out the whole month of driver income, so we are very concerned.”

The new alert system could help. A six-month pilot from October last year to March for 3,800 taxis from ComfortDelGro saw improvements.

Speeding violations decreased by 40 per cent, compared with the pre-trial period from April to September last year. Running-red-light infractions dropped by 34 per cent.

adrianl@sph.com.sg

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THE six City Harvest Church (CHC) leaders deceived church members, auditors and lawyers, and weaved a web of deceit to subvert the church’s internal governance bodies.

That was what Deputy Public Prosecutor Christopher Ong told the court yesterday morning.

He was responding to the arguments against conviction put forth by the six CHC leaders at the centre of a multi-million-dollar financial scandal.

In October last year, the six were convicted of misappropriating millions in church funds to fuel the pop music career of CHC senior pastor Kong Hee’s wife, Ho Yeow Sun, in a church mission known as the Crossover Project.

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The Straits Times, The New Paper

The court found that they had invested $24 million from CHC’s building fund in bogus bonds, but this money was in fact used to fund the Crossover Project.

Later, another $26 million was used to cover up the initial misdeed.

The six, including Kong, are appealing against their convictions and sentences. The others are Tan Ye Peng, Chew Eng Han, Serina Wee, John Lam and Sharon Tan.

The prosecution is also appealing for longer sentences.

City Harvest trial verdict: All six accused found guilty of all charges

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

Reuters, The Straits Times, AFP

DPP Ong said the CHC leaders knew the bond instruments were “excuses to expend building fund money on Sun Ho’s music career”.

The CHC leaders had said there was a need for secrecy in carrying out the Crossover Project to avoid public scrutiny.

DPP Ong said it was “strange” that the only thing that needed to be kept “secret” was the fact that Ms Ho was funded by the church’s building fund.

He added that it was public knowledge that she was the “famous pastor Kong Hee’s wife” and Kong would preach at the end of her concerts.

“Where is the secrecy in this?” asked DPP Ong.

5 things to know about the City Harvest trial

Click on thumbnail to view photos. Source: 

The Straits Times, The New Paper, City Harvest Church

dansonc@sph.com.sg

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