By: 永久浪客/Forever Vagabond
It has been reported on TISG that Singaporeans who went to polyclinics to see a doctor had asked for a local doctor instead when they were being referred to see a foreign one (https://theindependent.sg/
A netizen explained he did so because he didn’t want to take chances of risking his mother’s life to some foreign “uncertified doctor”.
Some netizens also brought up the case of Madam Koh Ah Tow who later died after she was prescribed with the wrong dosage of medicine by a Filipino doctor, Dr Diana Ramos Santos, at Clementi Polyclinic. Madam Koh died after she received 4 times more than the normal dosage she was supposed to be taking.
To make matters worse, Dr Santos tried to cover up and did not amend the prescription even after realising this. At the time, the media didn’t say where Dr Santos had obtained her medical degree from.
SMC issuing “temporary” license to foreign doctors from unaccredited medical schools
It has also been reported in an article that to circumvent the shortages of doctors in Singapore, the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) appears to be resorting to issuing “temporary” license to foreign doctors from unaccredited 3rd-world medical schools to work here.
According to SMC’s own website (http://www.
SMC specifically stated (http://www.
But then it added a caveat at the end of the page, saying that doctors who do not meet this criteria “may apply for temporary registration”.
Indeed, in the article, it highlighted 2 such examples – both doctors from Myanmar below had graduated from the University of Yangon. This university is not found inside the approved list of medical schools from SMC itself. Yet both were given “temporary registration” to work as medical practitioners at Ng Teng Fong General Hospital in Jurong:
In addition to hospitals, foreign doctors who graduated from unapproved 3rd-world medical schools (i.e, those not found inside the above SMC approved list) have also been found practising at our polyclinics.
A cursory search on SMC website (https://prs.moh.gov.sg/prs/
Only 5 third world countries have some of their medical schools approved by SMC. They are China (8 schools), India (9 but 1 was deleted), Malaysia (2), Pakistan (1), Sri Lanka (1).
https://theindependent.sg.sg/spore-ranked-no-4-for-medical-inflation/