Welcome to the official website of the Society for Audiology Professionals Singapore (SAPS)
Greetings, esteemed colleagues!
My committee and I are honoured and thankful to have the privilege to lead and serve you this term. As we transition towards a population health paradigm, I believe that Audiologists will have a more significant role in the community, with more autonomy to address the needs of our clients with hearing and balance issues. This is a crucial time for our profession, as we face new challenges and opportunities in the changing healthcare landscape.
SAPS has evolved a lot since its establishment in 2000, but our profession still needs to keep up with the growing demands of our ageing population. We acknowledge that manpower is always a constraint, and we urge you to seek ways to enhance processes, innovate and automate when possible. These are essential steps to improve our efficiency and effectiveness in delivering quality care to our clients. As SAPS expands, we hope to represent the interests of ALL audiologists and advocate for hearing health for everyone. We want to be a voice for our profession and a partner for our stakeholders in the hearing health sector.
We have taken great first steps in preparing for regulation of the profession by establishing best practice guideline in adult diagnostics and rehabilitation. We intend to continue this endeavour with other audiology sub-specialty areas, such as paediatric audiology, vestibular assessment and management, cochlear implantation, and more. We need your participation in this process, as your expertise and experience are valuable inputs for developing these guidelines. We also have some promising updates on continuing education forthcoming.
We are working on providing more opportunities for you to upgrade your skills and knowledge, as well as to network with other professionals in the field. We are aware that the pandemic had previously restricted our face-to-face meetings, but we have plans to restore our in-person events as much as possible. We miss seeing you and hearing from you in person, and we look forward to reconnecting with you soon.
We hope that Audiologists in Singapore will collaborate with us and work with other hearing health professionals as ONE, to elevate our professional standards together. We believe that by working together, we can achieve more than working alone.
ALL for ONE, ONE for ALL!
Kenneth Chua
President
Society for Audiology Professionals (Singapore)
The objectives of the Society are:
To promote the highest level of professional competence among members through honest, dignified, compassionate and ethical behaviors.
To educate health-care professionals and the general public on hearing healthcare and audiological issues.
To facilitate continuing education for members and hearing health professionals.
To provide a forum for members to discuss clinical cases, ethics, professional and audiological issues.
To promote goodwill among members hearing-health professionals and the community.
Audiology in Singapore Timeline
October 10
1977
The audiology unit of the Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) department at Singapore General Hospital was set up.
October 10
1985
There were 4 audiologists and 5 audio technicians working in the various hospitals in Singapore.
October 10
1997
The first paediatric cochlear implant surgery was carried out.
October 10
1999
The Ministry of Education started providing FM systems to schools with hearing-impaired students.
October 10
2000
The Society for Audiology Professionals (Singapore) (SAPS) was formed with 10 founding members.
October 10
2002
Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS) was introduced at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital.
October 10
2004
UNHS was introduced in all hospitals in Singapore.
October 10
2007
There were 25 audiologists and 25 audio technicians working in Singapore.
October 10
2010
SAPS and Temasek Polytechnic collaborate to offer the Professional Certificate in Basic Industrial Audiometry.
October 10
2012
The 11th Asia Pacific Congress on Deafness was held in Singapore.
October 10
2013
SAPS was accepted as a member of the National Council of Social Services.
The Seniors Mobility and Enabling Fund (SMF) was expanded to include subsidies for hearing aids.
The Masters of Audiology program was started at the National University of Singapore (NUS).
October 10
2015
The first cohort of NUS MSc Audiology students graduated.
October 10
2016
The number of SAPS members increased to more than 100.
The National University Hospital started two mobile hearing clinics.
October 10
2018
The Ministry of Health started Project Silver Screen, providing basic hearing screening at subsidized rates for citizens above 60 years of age.
October 10
2019
The 18th ASEAN ORL-HNS Congress was held in Singapore, with a full-day Audiology program organized by SAPS.
