SINGAPORE: On July 19, Ms Elena Mohamed Ayob, deputy director of nursing at Singapore General Hospital (SGH), was honoured with the President’s Award for Nurses, recognising her efforts in helping cut manpower attrition.
However, Singaporeans argue that better pay is a more effective way to reduce the attrition rate in health care.
Ms Elena, who has been with SGH for 26 years, faced a challenge when she took on the role of managing the hospital’s nursing staff in 2021. At that time, the attrition rate at SGH stood at 8.1 per cent.
To address this problem, Ms Elena and her team focused on enhancing the well-being of their nurses and staff. They introduced various engagement activities and established a platform where nurses could safely voice their concerns.
“One of the things that we focused on for the last few years was ensuring and improving the well-being of the nurses and staff by increasing opportunities for engagement activities,” she explained.
“We have a platform for the nurses to raise issues and concerns safely and for the supervisors and hospital to work on, such as creating an environment where the nurses feel safe to work,” she added.
According to The Straits Times, Ms Elena, with her team and the Ministry of Health (MOH), helped reduce the attrition rate by over 30 per cent to 6.7 per cent in 2023.
However, many netizens argue that money or better pay is a more effective solution.
One commenter remarked, “Do you know there’s a more effective way to reduce the attrition rate? $$$$$$$$$$$$$. I doubt people stay because of some pizza party, feedback form, etc.”
A health worker online also added, “As a health care worker (HCW) on the ground doing clinical work, not those seniors sitting in the office, better pay, reasonable caseload, no nasty caregivers would make me stay.”
“Got to try increasing salaries,” added another commenter.
Speaking of the burnout experienced in healthcare due to insufficient manpower, another healthcare worker shared:
“In my previous company, people were getting burnt out due to overwork and lack of manpower. The company decided to create a burnout and resilience module for everyone to take instead of hiring more staff.
HR KPI was achieved while we had to take extra time to do the module.”
The award was presented by President Tharman Shanmugaratnam at The Star Gallery. Ms Elena was among the five nursing leaders who were awarded the President’s Award For Nurses 2024, as reported by The Straits Times. /TISG
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