SINGAPORE NATIONAL ETHICS COMMITTEE

Singapore's Ministry of Health is setting up a National Ethics Committee to establish ethical guidelines raised by new medical treatments in cases such as organ transplants, assisted reproduction, and monitoring of terminal cases such as deformed babies and the elderly, reports the Straits Times. the Ministry's deputy director of medical services, Chen Ai Ju, says details of the committee and its members have yet to be worked out.

Advances in medical technology are presenting dilemmas for doctors, patients and their families, and some doctors have been pressing for guidelines to deal with moral medical issues. These include whether to prolong life-supporting treatments which do little to improve an elderly patient's or a deformed baby's chances of recovery, and if ultrasound scanning, and other tests which can tell if a fetus is abnormal or deformed are sufficient to decide whether to continue the pregnancy.

Doctors need to know what action to take if relatives object to the removal of kidneys from someone killed in an accident. Singapore law presumes consent for kidney removal upon death under certain conditions, including accidents, for people who had not objected to it while alive. But doctors face a dilemma if families object to the removal, although the law requires it. A further issue is whether a doctor should go ahead with expensive neurosurgery for a person with severe brain damage who cannot afford the expense.