Sufficiency of Manpower and Specialised Skills in Government Hospitals and Measures to Attract Quality Professionals

34 Mr Shawn Huang Wei Zhong asked the Minister for Health (a) whether there are updates on the manpower and specialised skills status of the Government hospitals; (b) whether there is a projected manpower shortage in these hospitals in the short to medium term; and (c) what are the measures taken by the Ministry to ensure that the local healthcare industry continues to attract quality medical and healthcare workers.

Mr Ong Ye Kung: We need to continue to grow our healthcare manpower to meet the rising demand for healthcare services due to an ageing population. Nationally, the number of nurses, allied health professionals and support care staff will need to increase by around 3,000 annually, and the number of junior doctors will need to increase by around 700 annually.

There are several ongoing initiatives to meet our manpower needs. Our education institutions continue to nurture healthcare workers for the future, and the courses have been well sought after by students. Public healthcare institutions continue to train and develop their staff. We have in place various mid-career conversion programmes. We continue to improve and redesign our model of care and job responsibilities. We continue to actively recruit foreign healthcare workers to complement our local core workforce. In addition, we regularly monitor and review staff salaries in our public healthcare institutions to ensure that they continue to be competitive against the market.