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23 May 2006
By Dr Balaji Sadasivan, Senior Minister of State for Health
Venue: Geneva
Mr President,
Acting Director General,
Honourable Ministers,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I would like to take this opportunity to convey my deepest condolence to Dr Lee's family. He was a friend to us in Singapore and we will miss him dearly.
I would also like to congratulate you, Mr President, on your election to your post.
We are very glad that the 2006 World Health Assembly has taken the theme, "Working together for health." This has been Singapore's philosophy since our independence forty-one years ago. We are a small island nation that has benefited from this philosophy.
Most countries are facing the challenge of a critical shortage of healthcare workers. Singapore too faces a shortage. At the time of our independence in 1965, we were a developing country with a limited budget for healthcare and modest healthcare infrastructure. We worked with more developed countries and institutions like the WHO to build up our healthcare manpower.
Today, these efforts have made a difference. We have about 6,500 doctors, 20,000 nurses and 1,300 dentists caring for our population of 4 million people. In the early years, we benefited from many healthcare training programmes run by international health organizations, such as the WHO, and developed countries. These enabled us to build up much needed expertise in healthcare.
We also adopted various strategies, such as increasing the student intake and improving training opportunities to meet our manpower needs. Scholarships were offered to Singaporeans to train in reputable centres overseas. New local training courses were introduced and existing training programmes were upgraded. Career development opportunities were enhanced and many jobs were re-designed. Work processes were streamlined to improve efficiency in the healthcare institutions. These measures have helped us meet our healthcare manpower needs.
Under the SingaporeMedicine initiatives, we provide tertiary healthcare services to patients in the region. At the same time, we also serve as a training centre in the region where healthcare workers can gather to train, learn, share and network.
Like the rest of the developed world, we have a greying population and need more doctors and healthcare workers. To meet this need, we are going to build a second medical school. Singapore General Hospital, Singapore's largest hospital will partner Duke University in setting up the Singapore Graduate Medical School. The school will be based on the Duke model.
We have also increased our nurse training capacity and now provide training to local and regional students. For example, under the Asian Nursing Scholarship Scheme, Singapore offers about 200 scholarships annually to students from Asian countries to undergo nurse training in Singapore. Upon graduation, they will become registered nurses and work in our hospitals for a few years to gain experience before returning to their countries. In addition, through the Singapore Co-operation Programme, we also provide health-related courses, such as Nursing Management, Medical and Humanitarian Emergencies, Obstetric and Gynaecology Nursing and Advanced Radiography, to healthcare workers from South-East Asian and other countries.
Singapore has experienced the benefits of a policy that strongly supports human capital investment in healthcare and so we strongly support WHO's efforts towards working together for health so that essential health programmes can be made available to all.
In order to make a difference, we must join forces in working together for health. We must bring all stakeholders together with solutions that work. This will make the difference that counts. Thank you.