SG Talk

Should Singapore do more to help foreign nurses to stay in the country?



https://theindependent.sg/should-singapo...e-country/

Do more to keep the nurse means increase their salaries or other incentives. This will translate into higher hospital fees which translate further into Singaporeans will have to pay more when hospitalised. 

PAP trains less local nurses and recruit more foreign nurses because they are cheap.

if PAP needs to increase the salary of foreign nurses, it will be cheaper for PAP to train more local nurses.

Glad that foreign nurses stay.
They are the 'white angels'.
Appreciate their contributions.

It's a catch-22 situation.

(01-05-2023, 08:34 AM)Bigiron Wrote: [ -> ]Should Singapore do more to help foreign nurses to stay in the country?



https://theindependent.sg/should-singapo...e-country/

(01-05-2023, 09:12 AM)Huliwang Wrote: [ -> ]Do more to keep the nurse means increase their salaries or other incentives. This will translate into higher hospital fees which translate further into Singaporeans will have to pay more when hospitalised. 

That's why hospital bills keep on going up lah!  They take your money to pay those foreigners lah! Singapore no nurse meh? 

Higher pay for nurse justifiable..

What is the queen of all nurses? Still a nurse.. lol

The fact is that the career progression of nursing is limited and there is only that many head nurse position available.

So the higher pay will be a way to keep them in the profession..

(01-05-2023, 09:47 AM)forum456 Wrote: [ -> ]PAP trains less local nurses and recruit more foreign nurses because they are cheap.

if PAP needs to increase the salary of foreign nurses, it will be cheaper for PAP to train more local nurses.

Foreign nurses will not leave if they have no other options. If they do leave, it means somewhere else is paying them more.  Are we going to just let them leave?  We are not facing a shortage of beds but nurses.  We can build 100 hospitals, convert HDB flats into hospital OR NURSING HOME wards, but can we find the requisite number of nurses?

Singapore has to face the law of supply and demand squarely in the face.  We are in no position to be a price (or salary) setter.

It is easier said than done, to just increase the intake of local nursing students and hey presto! we have another 100K nurses!  

Not enough doctors?  Increase the intake!

Not enough IT personnel?  Increase the intake!

Not enough banking personnel?  Increase the intake!

Not enough school teachers?  Increase the intake!

Talk is cheap.  Where to find so many "intake" when even primary and secondary schools are closed down because there simply ain't enough students?  We just didn't shut down our universities because we offered otherwise empty places to foreign students. 

Till now, you still don't get it, that our young local population numbers simply are not there.

(01-05-2023, 09:58 AM)Alice Alicia Wrote: [ -> ]It's a catch-22 situation.

Govt increased substantially hospital subsidies for sick and elderly treatment..

Indirectly creating jobs and helping foreign nurses

(01-05-2023, 12:49 PM)Oyk Wrote: [ -> ]Talk is cheap.  Where to find so many "intake" when even primary and secondary schools are closed down because there simply ain't enough students?  We just didn't shut down our universities because we offered otherwise empty places to foreign students. 

Till now, you still don't get it, that our young local population numbers simply are not there.

NUS needs to increase the intake from 20 to 200 since there are 230 applicants.

https://medicine.nus.edu.sg/nursing/2018...er-spikes/

It is also fuelled by strong interest from mid-career applicants looking to embark on a second career in nursing. The inaugural two-year Bachelor of Science (Nursing) programme offered by NUS Nursing was oversubscribed by more than 11 times, receiving 230 applications for 20 places.

(01-05-2023, 01:29 PM)forum456 Wrote: [ -> ]NUS needs to increase the intake from 20 to 200 since there are 230 applicants.

https://medicine.nus.edu.sg/nursing/2018...er-spikes/

It is also fuelled by strong interest from mid-career applicants looking to embark on a second career in nursing. The inaugural two-year Bachelor of Science (Nursing) programme offered by NUS Nursing was oversubscribed by more than 11 times, receiving 230 applications for 20 places.

That is enough to meet the total demand for nurses in all healthcare settings?

No need to bring in foreign nurses anymore?

You don't seem to even know that the vast majority of our young shun nursing, and the government is trying to woo older peepur to do a switch.  It has some success but not enough and at the rate we are going, we will have to depend on foreign nurses for a long time to come.

Money is only one of the things which attract them. But they mostly feel the stress of not being able to communicate with our elderly who cannot understand English.  You may take things for granted here because, with someone who speaks English, you speak that, and with someone who prefers to or can only speak Hokkien, you can also speak that.  If your Hokkien cmi, you can still try a combination of Teochew, Cantonese and Mandarin, and somehow, you can communicate with an ah gong or ah ma.

You don't understand how helpless a nurse who can speak in only English and Tagalog, or English and Burmese feel.  Before they came, they though that Singapore was an English speaking country.  After they came, they discovered to their horror that this is not so, 100% of the time.  So they finally pack up and leave for Canada, the US...where English is indeed the only language they need to speak...not the low ses Hokkien.  Just say "Take your medicine!".  Not simi ranjiao "jiak yiok!"  And doctor is doctor.  Not lokoon!