Doctors' pay

Sg lack human resource in healthcare cause many drs quit to join the private sector.
There is actually sufficent drs in the private sector which is why I say medical school selection is not perfect and not all drs will stay in the public sector earning less and working more.

Hopefully more drs will think like our minister Dr Ng who worked twice as much now as a minister earning only 1/5 of his previous salary in the private sector. Money is not everything and we do need dedicated drs to work in the public sector for the poor and needy.

By flooding the private sector with gps and specialists, this will help in public sector retaining doctors and improve working conditions of doctors in Singapore.

Hi
What is the usual duration of time taken by MOHH to send an offer letter ?
Any other tips to know before planning a relocation to this beutiful country?

10K++ depending on experience
Working in Singapore is a wonderful experience

Eg http://www.physician.mohh.com.sg/drs_talk.html
Opportunities for Career and Personal Development
I came to work in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the National University Hospital, Singapore back in 1994. What attracted me to this place was because I like a strong and able government and, having worked in the UK, USA and a third world country, that was a refreshing change.

Another reason was to take my career up to the next level. I had a wealth of clinical and teaching experience but my path to an administrative role (i.e. running an emergency department) was blocked due to a lack of opportunities. I decided to move to Singapore and was offered the opportunity to head the department at the hospital. I would like to advise foreign medical graduates who are interested to work in Singapore to pick a field that is less staffed such as biomedical sciences, cardiothoracic surgery and neurology. This way, they can make a greater contribution to the development of these specialties and gain satisfaction from being true pioneers of their respective fields in Singapore.

However, prospective applicants should know that they would be required to put in the effort and work hard in order to be able to succeed. Those who do would be to reap the rewards and be provided with ample opportunities for career and personal development. They will also be able to broaden their knowledge and gain experience in the handling many unique diseases and conditions.

by Prof Peter G Manning, Senior Consultant
Department of Emergency Medicine

Registration:
http://www.smc.gov.sg/html/1153709452985.html

Director
Human Resources & Talent
Development Division
MOH Holdings Pte Ltd
83 Clemenceau Avenue #15-03
UE Square, Singapore 239920

Fax : (65) 6720 0980
Email : [email protected]

Yeah hospadmin, my comment may be biased. Look who is biased. Talking about foreign and local doctors. I did not mention if I am a singaporean, unless you stratified foreign and local by their degree itself. And cant belive that you actually encourage people to go private where you are supposed to recruit people and help the LOCAL doctors. Aren’t everyone supposed to be treated equally? What if i’m a singaporean but graduated overseas? am i supposed to be treated as a foreign doctor?

Anyway, have you actually worked in the clinical setting before? or even watch how all the doctors work in the hospital? This comment is not only from foreign grad like me, even the LOCAL grads are unhappy about the current situation. Be it local or foreign, we are here to serve your country and hope for a better change.

Do you honestly DO NOT agree that we are being exploited to work >30 hours non-stop and underpaid? We work almost 6.5 to 7 days per week without being paid for the weekend? Do you get a day off every week?? even Maids have a compulsary day off, isn’t it true??

Let’s compare your own pay to your workload and working hours then. Do you think you work as hard as any doctors that work under the government sector? Do you want to count your pay/hour to ours? There is a virtual “rule” that says that we cant work for more than X hours per week? But does anyone care? If you are under the MOHH, have u actually care of how long we work? is it safe for a human being to work long hours, and this person is handling people’s life? you may become a patient one day, will be feel safe to be taken care of by someone that has been working long hours without any rest? do you think that person’s judgment will still be sound? you think about it..

Probably you are one of them that recruit ppl from overseas to relieve the workload of the local doctors, but has anything been changed? you have recruited hundreds of foreign grads, singaporeans and non-singaporeans. However, all of us still work as hard..so what and where is the change? You mentioned that the cost has to be kept low, but the hours remain the same..so the GOOD change is increase the quantity of doctor, remain/cut your budget but the workload remains?

Everyone realise that the private sector is offering good money and good hours.
But not everyone would like to go there because we do want to serve the poor and help those who are in need. But do you think we need to sacrifice so much and live an unhealthy lifestyle just becoz we are SUPPOSED to commit our life to medicine and not expecting anything for return.
HONESTLY, a lot of us do want to retain in the government sector and we are not expecting to earn big money and live in luxury. All we want is to work safely, and live a slightly more balance life. We don’t even mind doing calls if we can go post-call at 8am! that is definitely possible if the someone can help to make a change! The only reason why the call hours are not being changed for the past few decades is merely becoz the seniors used to work twice as hard as us and all of them survived. So we should and shall not complain of working long hours. But the amount of nurses and doctors was way lesser back then. It make sense why they had to work so hard. But why is that still happening now?

We are not working in a third world country, things should be changed.. Hospadmin, I believe I’m not the only one that have mentioned about this. As this problem has been existing for decades… Do ask yourself if all the statements above are true to a certain extend before you comment that this is biased. As you’ll have your biased opinion from admin point of view too.
Most of the doctors are still dedicated to serve the public; also agree that money is not everything. However dedication and enthusiasm may burn out one day when one has to work so hard that ones health and family is being neglected. We are just a human being after all..

Dear slave of medicine,
I do hope you stop painting a biased view of Singapore hospital life or actions may be taken against you.

Firstly, encouraging greedy doctors to go private help ensure that those remaining in the public sector work for love of their patients rather than for money. They will tend to complain less and lower morale of the doctors in the public sector.

Flooding the private sector with doctors also help in increasing competition and lower healthcare costs. Look at cost of lasik.

Polyclinic doctors do not work >30 hours non stop so you have a choice not to choose hospital postings that are less family friendly.
Long working hours help to reduce cost of manpower.
Why hire 2 doctors when 1 doctor can do the same job for less? Then again, you will be pleased to note that we are actively hiring doctors from Australia, India, UK, Taiwan, Malaysia. Workload will be decreased but this recruitment drive is difficult enough without your biased comments about work in Singapore.

I think that you should speak to MOHH asap and request to transfer to a family friendly posting like polyclinic, health promotion board as you have shown to be totally burnt out as evidence by your biased view.

HI,

If private doctors should classified as greedy then the whole world should be classified as such excluding doctors from public hospital. I am in private. I just don’t agree with the way gov treated me.

It look scary that hospadmin would like to take action against slave of medicine. where is the freedoom of speech here. You can provide neccesary data and statistic to prove him/her wrong, but taking action will just scare people away.

To salmonela:

I am not calling private doctors greedy but asking those in the public sector who wants more money to join the private sector instead.
If wanting more money for doing the same work is not greedy, what is?

Taking action means that people will not post biased view of working in Singapore. As employees of public hospitals, they must not mislead the public and should not comment on their work in public hospitals.

I hope this clarifies our stand.

I seriously think hospadmin is living in his/her ivory tower.
Stop recruiting foreign drs to flood the medical community. This will lower the salaries of local doctors and force them to switch to other lucrative fields.
I have many seniors doing medical aesthetics instead of GP work.

Slave of medicine is an example of a lousy foreign doctor. Stop making a fool of yourself. Your degree is recognised elsewhere so leave if you are not happy. U think u are hero but u are just a nus reject.

Recruiting doctors like slave of medicine just lower the morale of existing local doctors who work so hard but are forced to fight on equal terms with foreign doctors for limited traineeship.

Singapore should be for Singaporean only. Stop recruiting foreign doctors and depressing our local wages.

[admin]

Dear hospadmin,

On September 15th, 2009 at 1:26 am, you said the following to “slave of medicine”:
“I do hope you stop painting a biased view of Singapore hospital life or actions may be taken against you.”

Can you explain what “actions” will be taken against him/her? Why the threat?

I’m the admin of this site. I encourage constructive and civilized discussions here. Even heated personal arguments are fine. But threatening others is just too much.

There are OB markers here, and threatening others is definitely a no-no.

I have allowed you to advertise your MOHH recruitment service for free, so the least you could do is to abide by the rules here.

Now, I need you to retract your threat and apologize to “slave of medicine” or actions will be taken against you.

Dear admin
I apologise for my threats to slave of medicine.
However, we do have strict rules for employees making biased comments to the public.

Please kindly delete all my previous posts.
I will not longer participate in this forum or advertise for foreign drs to come to Singapore.

Thanks