Statistics on Doctors under Structured Traineeship Programmes Consuming Maternity or Paternity Leave

26 Dr Tan Wu Meng asked the Minister for Health from 2018 to 2021 annually, broken down by gender (a) how many doctors were on structured traineeship programmes, such as (i) Residency and (ii) Senior Residency; (b) how many became parents to a newborn child during traineeship; (c) what proportion of these doctors consumed their full entitlement of maternity leave or paternity leave respectively; and (d) of these doctors, how many (i) had traineeship extended by a year or more and (ii) resigned from traineeship before completion.

Mr Ong Ye Kung: Between 2018 and 2021, there was an average of 2,100 doctors in residency training every year, with approximately equal proportion of males and females. Around 13% of the residents currently in training had at least one newborn child during training over the past four years. Most of them were able to consume their full entitlement of maternity or paternity leave.

For residents with at least one newborn child between 2018 and 2021, 2% had their training extended for more than a year due to maternity leave and no-pay-leave-related absences and less than 5% resigned from training due to family commitments.