Local schools are Singapore’s primary pipeline for producing medical professionals; however, some foreign hires are also made to assist with patient load.
Over the course of ten years, the total number of students accepted into Singapore’s medical schools rose by approximately sixty percent.
Local schools are Singapore’s primary pipeline for producing medical professionals; however, some foreign hires are also made to assist with patient load.
SINGAPORE: Local medical schools are still the primary source of doctors for Singapore, but the country also recruits medical professionals from other countries to help relieve the strain of patient care in hospitals, according to Senior Minister of State for Health Janil Puthucheary’s statement in Parliament on Monday.
According to him, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom are the top five countries from which Singapore recruits medical professionals from other countries.
Dr. Puthucheary was responding to a question that was posed by Member of Parliament Don Wee (PAP-Chua Chu Kang). Mr. Wee had inquired as to whether or not the Health Ministry would consider expanding the number of students accepted into local medical schools, as well as where Singapore recruits its overseas medical professionals.
According to Dr. Puthucheary, the number of students accepted into Singapore’s medical schools has increased by approximately 60 percent in the past ten years, going from approximately 320 in the year 2010 to 510 in the year 2019.
He made note of the fact that the schools admitted an additional forty medical students each year in the years 2020 and 2021 in order to accommodate students whose medical studies in other countries had to be interrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition to medical professionals who have graduated from one of Singapore’s many medical schools, the city-state annually welcomes back approximately 200 Singaporeans who have either studied medicine or worked in the medical field elsewhere.
According to Dr. Puthucheary, the majority of them received their education in either Australia, the United Kingdom, or Ireland.
In order to reduce the amount of work that needs to be done in certain departments and hospitals, he went on to say that “in addition, we supplement recruitment with qualified doctors from recognized universities in other countries.”
Around a month and a half after MOH Holdings (MOHH), the holding company of Singapore’s public healthcare clusters, stated that more than ninety percent of its doctors are from the country’s own population, a parliamentary question was raised on the subject.
After a recent tender it issued on recruiting doctors from India sparked debate online, MOHH was responding to inquiries from the media at the time.
According to the tender documents, the intention was to recruit sixty medical officers from India on an annual basis beginning now and continuing until 2024, with the possibility of extending the program by one additional year.
The Ministry of Health and Hospitals (MOHH) issued a statement saying that the recruitment of locals from medical schools that are recognized by the Singapore Medical Council is its top priority.
The Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University, the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore, and the Duke-NUS Medical School are the three institutions of higher learning in the field of medicine that can be found in Singapore.
On Monday, Dr. Puthucheary stated that the attrition rate of doctors in the public healthcare sector is acceptable, ranging from 3 to 5 percent from 2019 to 2021. He made this statement in reference to the projected timeline.
Dr. Puthucheary stated that there is already a framework in place to look at the standards that are required to enter medical school as well as full practice in response to another question that was posed by Mr. Wee. Mr. Wee wanted to know whether the Ministry of Health (MOH) could collaborate with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to increase the local medical school intake for graduates of polytechnics.
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