Measures to Reduce and Compensate for Attrition of Doctors in Public Sector

2 Mr Don Wee asked the Minister for Health (a) whether the Ministry will consider expanding the intake of our three local medical schools; (b) what are the measures to reduce the attrition rate of doctors in the public sector; and (c) which are the top five countries that our foreign doctors are recruited from.

The Senior Minister of State for Health (Dr Janil Puthucheary) (for the Minister for Health): Mr Speaker, over the last 10 years – from 2010 to 2019 – our medical schools have increased their combined annual intakes by around 60% from around 320 to 510. In 2020 and 2021, we admitted another 40 medical students each year. These were students whose overseas medical studies were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

While our main source of doctors will continue to be our local medical schools, about 200 locals who study or practise medicine overseas return to Singapore annually. Most of them study or work in Australia, the United Kingdom or Ireland. In addition, we supplement recruitment with qualified doctors from recognised universities from other countries, to ease the workload in specific departments and hospitals. Currently, the top five countries that our foreign doctors are recruited from are India, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and the United Kingdom.

The attrition rate of doctors from the public healthcare sector into private practice is acceptable and it ranges from 3% to 5% in the time period 2019 to 2021. We continue to make various efforts to retain our doctors within the public healthcare sector.

Mr Speaker: Mr Don Wee.

Mr Don Wee (Chua Chu Kang): Thank you, Speaker. I thank the Senior Minister of State for his reply. Can MOE work with MOH to increase the intake of deserving local Polytechnic graduates? The second supplementary question: I understand that returning Singaporeans from recognised foreign universities have a difficult path of obtaining their full registration licences. Can MOH put in measures to ease the transition?

Dr Janil Puthucheary: Sir, I thank the Member for his two questions. There is a point that is related across both of the questions, which is that we have to have a series of processes that maintains standards for our medical professionals. So, on his first question, it is around the academic standards; the second is around safety and the regulatory practices around the person being fully registered.

In both cases, we have a framework looking at the standards required to enter medical school and then, to enter full practice. On the first point of whether those standards for medical students should be altered in some way, I think he would agree with me that it should not. We do have to make sure that the people who go into the medical schools have the aptitude, the attitude, the ability to not just complete their studies but have the ability to do well. Having said that, there are Polytechnic graduates who are making it into medical school – we see them reported in the press. I think the importance is that they have met those standards and then, are able to flourish within medical schools; and they have a fulfilling career. We will continue to study this space.

The same principle applies then to his second question, which is about foreign-trained doctors coming to practise within Singapore. In order to serve the mission to the public, we should hold them to the same safety requirements as any other graduate from a local university going out into medical practice. And so, there is a standard set of approaches in order to make sure that they are safe to practise before they get fully registered. And I am sure the Member would agree – we should not reduce those standards.