Debated in Parliament on 1 Aug 2017.
Ms Foo Mee Har asked the Minister for Health (a) whether there is a shortage of local doctors in Singapore; and (b) if so, what is the Ministry doing to help (i) students better assess the prospects of pursuing medicine as a career (ii) young doctors better understand the landscape of specialisations that the country needs and (iii) the public to better understand the extent of Singapore's dependence on foreign doctors.
As at 31 December 2016, there were about 13,000 registered doctors in Singapore, with a strong local core of 84% local doctors. As our ageing population will continue to drive demand for medical manpower, the Ministry of Health (MOH) has been working with the Ministry of Education to review and plan our local medical training pipelines to meet Singapore's future healthcare needs.
The local medical intakes have increased from 354 in 2012 to 471 in 2016 and is projected to grow to 500 in 2018. Besides growing local intakes, we are also attracting more Singaporean doctors trained overseas to return and practise in Singapore through the Pre-Employment Grant (PEG) and Relocation Incentive (RI) introduced in 2010. Since inception, about 900 PEGs and 300 RIs have been awarded. The number of newly registered overseas-trained Singaporean doctors returning annually has doubled from 92 in 2012 to 182 in 2016.
While we have increased the pipelines of local doctors, foreign doctors are needed to supplement the local pool. With more Singaporeans joining the medical workforce, we expect the recruitment of foreign doctors to moderate going forward.
With an ageing population, the type of disciplines in demand will shift towards the more generalist disciplines, such as Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Geriatric Medicine. We will continue to raise awareness of the changing postgraduate training needs amongst junior doctors and medical students.
PAPERCUTS