Government Contributions or Subsidies for Wages of Long-term Care Workers

13 Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Minister for Health what can be done to increase Government contributions or subsidies for the wages of long-term care workers including those in voluntary welfare organisations.

Mr Gan Kim Yong: In addition to patient subsidies, MOH also provides direct funding to subsidised long-term care (LTC) service providers to help them defray their operating costs, including manpower costs.

Over $200 million of funding had been extended to 59 LTC service providers between 2012 and 2017 to raise the salaries of LTC staff. This has led to an average increase of local LTC workers' salaries by around 30% across participating providers over this period. We also support skills training, through scholarships and grants, productivity improvement and job redesign initiatives to raise the value of jobs alongside salary increases.

We will continue with our efforts to improve career opportunities in the LTC sector and we will regularly review funding support for salaries of LTC staff to ensure that they are adequately recognised for their contributions.