Question:
Miss Cheryl Chan Wei Ling: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) whether he can provide an update on the progress of the SCDF emergency preparedness exercise and roll-out of SGSecure in condominiums and private estates; and (b) whether there are plans to place Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) at public spaces in private estates.
Answer:
1. SGSecure programmes are accessible to everyone, whether they stay in public or private housing.
2. An example is the Emergency Preparedness (EP) Day event held in various locations across the island. EP Days are conducted at public areas with high human traffic, and all are welcome to attend. Other outreach activities include school assembly talks, and counter terrorism seminars and exercises in workplaces and religious organisations.
3. To reach out to more members of the public, Home Team officers are also conducting house visits. These visits are currently focused on HDB estates, but we will progressively include private estates and condominiums.
4. We are also planning a pilot programme to install AEDs in selected condominiums. This is an extension of our Save-A-Life initiative, introduced in 2015 to enhance community response to cardiac arrest cases. So far, more than 2,000 AEDs have been installed in HDB blocks in 36 out of 89 constituencies.
5. We are in the midst of identifying suitable condominiums to be part of this pilot. The installation of the AEDs will be packaged together with SGSecure and CPR/AED training.
