Singapore’s health minister Ong Ye Kung has confirmed that Malaysia is one of the countries the republic looks to when recruiting doctors for its healthcare sector. He made the acknowledgement during an informal dialogue session with participants of the 17th Malaysia Journalists Visit Programme, hosted by Singapore’s Ministry of Communications and Digital Development.
Despite having three medical schools — National University of Singapore (NUS), the Duke-NUS graduate medical school and a third established in partnership with Imperial College at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) — Singapore produces only around 550 doctors annually, which Ong said is insufficient to meet demand.
He added that while Singapore primarily depends on its own training pipeline and encourages Singaporeans who studied medicine abroad to return, it occasionally hires overseas doctors, including from the United Kingdom, India and Malaysia, though these represent a small proportion overall.
Previous reports alleged that Singapore was actively recruiting Malaysian specialists and nurses. However, Malaysian Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad clarified in Parliament that his Singaporean counterpart denied any official effort, attributing recruitment attempts to private agencies. Dzulkefly said Ong conveyed his regret over the matter and agreed to further engagement, adding this was not the first time action had been taken regarding such reports.
