I read that it will cost a student about $600k to study Medicine in Australia or more in the US or UK. This is a princely sum of money to acquire a skill to earn a living. I can presume that the cost of training a doctor locally is just as much, though it may cost less to a student after govt subsidies. The full cost could be as much as a million to produce a locally trained doctor to practice as a GP. For the specialists, the cost will be much more.
In my view this is just not cost effective. When we can get fully trained doctors overseas, including specialists, without paying a cent for their training, why do we need to spend so much of our resources on training doctors locally? All the infrastructure, the manpower, resources, etc can be put to better use elsewhere. In a way, we can outsource our medical training overseas by recruiting foreign talents. And we can pay them cheaper than our locals with their unjustly high expectations.
Boon Wan is talking about cutting cost in the medical profession by increasing productivity. I think he should consider this option. The cost will definitely come down, without the costly investment and with cheaper doctors readily available.
In the name of efficiency, cost effectiveness, we can put this kind of thinking further by closing all our universities and recruit foreign talents and graduates to work in the professions and industries as well. Definitely cheaper, hungrier, and more dynamic and with cost advantage, will make our economy more competitive and vibrant.
As for the Singaporeans, they are quite expensive to train locally. If they can afford it, they can join the army of locals in their march to foreign universities which are deemed to be more valuable and better, and come back as foreign talents. They can foot their own training without the state having to fund the local universities and to provide subsidies on their tuition fees.
The net effect is that we will have cheaper doctors who are better trained by overseas universities to serve our people. It is a win win situation.
That's why I said , George Yeo did a lot of damage at MOH when he came up with the pea brain idea of restricting medical colleges that could be recognised. So he sowed the seeds of doctor shortages since his time.
ReplyDeleteThere are many medical colleges ( international ) with twnining program just across to the causeway. Dun need to send too far off to train doctors. The cost can be cut significantly.
ReplyDeleteNo, the idea of restricting local graduates from the medical faculty sounds like something from Kuan Yew. George was just a surrogate...
ReplyDeleteYou can close all the hospitals also. Everyone goes to JB for treatment. With FT doctors and nurses, JB or Sg is the same.
ReplyDeleteHi Heng Ibrahim, welcome to the blog.
ReplyDeleteOutsourcing is another form of substitution with foreign talents. Cheap and good.
Yeah, do forget to close Engineering,flooding,mrt problems also cannot solved must asked foreign experts.meanwhile in our industries with so many cheap FT, older workers couldn't land a decent job and our trained student not interested/aptitude in engineering.
ReplyDeleteAny talent that is cheap and good is good for Sin except for political talent. This one, the more expensive the betterer the quality.
ReplyDeleteThis is a superb idea; close the medical school n the hospitals.Pl ask boon wan to think oyut of the box
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 11:53 , the $8 CABG guy already thought out of the box. His suggestion to shunt old folks to JB was shot down by the mob. Sad to say , reality is , it is actually a very practical solution he offered. This is the hard truth sinkies have to swallow , with the diminishing pool of CPF we can ever claw back , we really may have to come to JB nursing home when the time comes. Sad but true , the old hard truth. Suck it up , old man , please go meet your maker ASAP.
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Agree on the cost saving part by getting in foreign talent. But then we will be competing with other countries for doctors if we do not nurture any of our own. Being too dependent on foreign imports is not good. Of course it will be great if PM and his gang could truly sacrifice by cutting they pay so that more fund could be channel to getting in real talented medical profession to improve our healthcare.
ReplyDeleteAnother cost-cutting idea.
ReplyDeleteAll Ministers and senior civil servants medical, surgical and hospitalization benefits apply only to hospitals in Africa.
First step is to substitute the professionals with cheap FTs. The finance industry is doing it happily.
ReplyDeleteNext all the industries should go for cheap FTs. Then we can outsource our soldiers and police as well.
Finally we can outsource our political leaders as well. This one will surely have damn good discounts. Close one eye, 90% discount also can get.
When the foreigners have taken over everything, they can send all the Sinkies to countries that are less competitive for the Sinkies to fade away.
You are talking about cutting costs in the PUBLIC health sector. I fully support any effort to reduce the cost of any state welfare nonsense.
ReplyDeleteHigh cost of top shelf medical education is always justified as the best doctors generally end up in PRIVATE practice.
Going down with cancer today can cost anything from $500k to several millions. It all depends on who is the specialist or which bunch of specialists are involved.
ReplyDeleteActually this is cheap. The specialist can save your life. So if one is worth $100m, by right one owes his life to the specialist and it is fair that the specialist charges half of his fortune or one will have no life to spend that money.
Anyone who is worth less than $1m, don't bother. You can't afford a specialist. Save it for your loved ones to spend than sharing with the specialists.
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