SINGAPORE — With about 9,000 healthcare workers needed in the next three years as new facilities and services come up, the Government will invest another S$24 million to get more mid-career Singaporeans to switch to the healthcare sector.

Among other things, there will be more funding allocated to the Professional Conversion Programmes (PCPs) for nursing, and a new overseas nursing scholarship will be introduced.

Announcing these in Parliament on Thursday (March 9) during the debate on the budget for the Health Ministry (MOH), Senior Minister of State for Health Amy Khor said that Singapore needs to grow its healthcare workforce “to support increasing healthcare demand due to an ageing population and growing chronic disease burden”. “The positive news is that growth in the healthcare sector will bring many good jobs, clinical and non-clinical, and at different levels, for Singaporeans,” she added.

About half of the projected 9,000 new openings are for professionals, managers, executives and technicians (PMETs) in roles such as nurses, therapists, administrative executives and operations managers.

Efforts to draw mid-career professionals to be nurses will see greater funding for the conversion and training programmes. Under the PCPs for nursing, employers will co-fund 10 per cent of the training cost, down from the 20 to 50 per cent currently.

MOH will also provide new on-the-job training support of S$12,000 to employers for every mid-career enrolled nurse and S$16,000 for every mid-career registered nurse. These will kick in for the graduating cohort of the PCPs from 2017 onwards.

Besides these measures, a new two-year overseas nursing scholarship will be made available for non-nursing degree graduates such as fresh graduates and those with prior work experience, for them to pursue a graduate-entry master’s course in nursing. The course will be fully sponsored, including tuition fees and maintenance allowances.

After graduating, they have to return to practise as a registered nurse in a public healthcare institution here. MOH targets to give out 20 scholarships every year.

Dr Khor pointed out that there are even more job opportunities in the growing aged-care sector, where new services and options are being rolled out to help seniors age in the community. To encourage non-practising nurses here to rejoin the sector, MOH will enhance the Return to Nursing programme. Such nurses hired by aged-care providers will enjoy a bonus of between S$3,000 and S$5,000 once they join, and they will draw full salaries instead of merely allowances during their three-month training.

To drive preventive care in the community, MOH will also be building up capabilities in community nursing, Dr Khor said. “If we want to go beyond healthcare to health, we need nurses to deliver preventive health in the community. If we want to go beyond hospitals to the community and home, we need nurses to support patients with good day care and home-based care,” she said.

A Community Nursing Scholarship will therefore be launched later this year to attract O- and A-Level students to specialise in community nursing. They will take up diploma and degree courses, and then be offered job attachments with community institutions.

THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH IS EXPECTED TO SPEND S$10.7 BILLION THIS FINANCIAL YEAR, UP 9.6 PER CENT FROM S$9.8 BILLION LAST YEAR
Some key plans:

• Legal age for smoking to be raised from 18 to 21 years old
• Enhanced subsidies for Screen For Life programme, where eligible Singapreans undergo screening tests at appropriate times for diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, among other conditions
• S$20 million to encourage use and consumption of whole grains in rice and noodles and healthier cooking oil, by incentivising food ingredient manufacturers and suppliers, and reaching out to F&B businesses and consumers
• New HealthHub Track app by the Health Promotion Board to enable users to monitor and manage their health conditions
• Pioneer and Punggol Polyclinics to open this year; Yishun and Ang Mo Kio Polyclinics will be re-developed next year
• Keat Hong and Tampines Family Medicine Clinics to open this year
• New Sengkang General and Community Hospitals to open by end-2018.