The Opening Ceremony Of Healthcare Career Fair

14 Feb 2003

By Mr Lim Hng Kiang

Venue: Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre

I am very happy to be here today at the opening of the Healthcare Career Fair. The fair has come at an opportune time. While the unemployment rate has improved slightly to 4.2% at the end of last year, from 4.6% the previous quarter, the labour market is still weak and is likely to remain so with the current restructuring of the economy.

But take heart. There are sectors in Singapore which are still recording steady growth and short of workers. One of them is the healthcare sector.

Healthcare as a Sector for Job-seekers

The healthcare sector currently employs more than 30,000 people. It is still short of manpower, and the 2 healthcare clusters alone have more than 1,500 vacancies. Besides, the healthcare sector has traditionally relied heavily on foreign manpower due to the shortage of local healthcare workers. With the high demand for healthcare workers around the world, especially nurses and the allied health professionals, we need to attract and train more locals to take up job opportunities in the sector.

Promote Nursing and Raise Awareness of Allied Health Careers

One of the main objectives of this fair is therefore to help job-seekers and school leavers understand the job opportunities in the healthcare sector. Most of us tend to associate healthcare work to doctors and nurses, but the sector actually employs a whole range of workers, from the professionals to the rank and file. Even for the more commonly known professions, many of them have seen their roles evolved over the years.

Take nursing for example. Most of us know what a nurse does. However, some of us may not know exactly the scope of work of our nurses nowadays. Over the years, the role of the nurses has evolved. The Enrolled Nurses now monitor glucose levels, administer insulin injections and do wound management. With the advancement in technology, Registered Nurses also perform added roles such as giving intravenous medication and inserting intravenous cannulas for infusion of blood, fluids and medication. Soft skills, such as communication skills, have also been honed with more counselling provided to patients. Nursing education has also progressed in parallel with the increased expectations, and graduate and postgraduate education in nursing have been developed.

In 2001, we also reviewed the nursing careers and now, besides the administrative and education tracks, there is a clinical track for Registered Nurses to progress in their career while remaining in clinical practice. These nurses can progress to become nurse specialists and nurse practitioners.

Unlike the nurses, many of us may not have much idea about what the allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists and radiographers do. In fact, a recent survey among JC2 students conducted by the Ministry of Health showed that only about a third of the students were aware of the allied health professions.

All these professionals play a very important part in the care of patients. The physiotherapists, for example, play a very important role in the prevention, assessment and treatment of disorders of human movement due to physical disabilities, trauma or illness. The Occupational Therapists, on the other hand, play a key role in the treatment and management of the physical and psychological conditions of patients. The diagnostic radiographers specialise in producing medical images, and they play a crucial role in producing high quality images needed for the diagnosis of illness and injuries.

We hope that through events such as this fair, students and job-seekers alike can learn more about these professions, understand how these professionals contribute to the care of our patients and consider becoming part of them.

Scholarships available

For students who are interested in a healthcare career, the Public Service Commission and the 2 healthcare clusters currently offer a whole range of scholarships to cater to different needs and interests. There is the PSC Overseas Specialist Award (Paramedical) which sends bright A level students and top polytechnic students overseas to pursue allied health and nursing training. We also launched the Allied Health Scholarship last year for those who are interested to pursue an allied health career but were deterred by the lack of allied health degree courses in Singapore. Through a special arrangement we had with the University of Sydney, students on the scholarship are allowed direct entry into the final year of the degree course in the university immediately after completing their diploma course here. There are also scholarships offered by the clusters for students who wanted to study nursing and allied health courses in the Nanyang Polytechnic and ITE.

The 2 healthcare clusters alone offered more than 400 scholarships last year. I encourage those of you who are interested to join the healthcare industry to apply for one.

Retraining opportunities

Besides the scholarships, the Ministry of Manpower, together with Ministry of Health, is constantly exploring ways to provide mid-career Singaporeans with the opportunities to retrain for jobs in the healthcare sector. With the current economic restructuring, many of the jobs lost over the past year may never return. Hence, constant upgrading and retraining is the only way to ensure that our workforce is equipped to face the future.

In this respect, I am pleased to use this occasion to launch the Strategic Manpower Conversion Programme (Healthcare) or SMCP in short. The programme, which was jointly developed by the Ministry of Manpower and the Ministry of Health, aims to attract Singaporeans in other fields to retrain and embark on careers in the healthcare sector.

The programme will commence with the SMCP (Healthcare) in Nursing, where the trainees would undergo the inaugural Accelerated Diploma in Nursing at the Nanyang Polytechnic, starting in April. Under the programme, diploma or degree graduates with at least two years of working experience will be able to complete the Diploma in Nursing course 1 year faster than the normal 3-year course.

The recruiting healthcare institutions, comprising the 2 healthcare clusters, private and community hospitals, are committed to recruit at least 80 Singaporeans for this programme. Participants will get a training allowance, besides having their course fees paid by the sponsors.

I understand from the Ministry of Manpower that there had been quite a lot of interest in the course. If the response is good, we hope to develop more healthcare courses, for example for Occupational Therapy and Diagnostic Radiography, under the SMCP (Healthcare) in the near future.

Conclusion

This fair is our first attempt to bring together the employers, the promoters and the educators of the healthcare sector in a single venue to offer jobs, careers and training opportunities. As Singapore bid to grow as the health services hub of the region, and with our ageing population, we will need even more workers in the healthcare sector. I welcome you to join this exciting industry.

On this note, I declare the Healthcare Career Fair open.