Members of Parliament from The Workers’ Party consistently posed questions in Parliament last month that are relevant to the lives of Singaporeans, including those related to the number of doctors in Singapore, the scheduled rollout of bivalent vaccines for those under 50 years old, HDB units, staggered school openings and even the projected rate of population growth in Singapore.
Health appeared to be an important topic among the WP MPs, who had a number of questions for the Ministry of Health in October. Both Mr Gerald Giam (Aljunied GRC) and Ms He Ting Ru (Sengkang GRC) posed queries regarding doctors in Singapore.
Mr Giam had said that rather than relying on foreign doctors, it might be better to facilitate the return of SG doctors who graduated from foreign universities, given the recent news that MOH Holdings is looking to hire 180 junior doctors from India in the next three years.
Meanwhile, Ms He asked Health Minister Ong Ye Kung what the yearly number of foreign-trained doctors who are registered as new medical practitioners in Singapore has been, as well as how many of them are practising family medicine. She also asked for a breakdown according to Singapore citizens, permanent residents, and non-residents.
In reply to Mr Giam, Mr Ong said that Singaporeans who study medicine in recognised overseas universities are being encouraged to return home to contribute to the healthcare system.
And in answer to Ms He’s question, MOH said that there were 2,780 foreign-trained doctors newly registered in Singapore over the last five years. Among them, 274 are currently on the Family Physicians Register, composed of 116 Singapore citizens, 133 Permanent Residents and 25 non-residents.
In response to Assoc Prof Jamus Lim (Sengkang GRC), who had asked about the timeline for the rollout of the bivalent Covid vaccines for people under the age of 50, the Health Minister said that individuals aged between 18 and 49 would be invited to take either the bivalent Moderna/Spikevax or the Pfizer-BioNTech/Comirnaty later this year as the supply of these vaccines increase “in a matter of weeks.”
“Bivalent vaccines provide better protection against newer COVID-19 variants compared to the original vaccines, and we recommend individuals who are eligible to take it,” MOH said.
WP MP Louis Chua (Sengkang GRC) asked the Minister for National Development about the average number of HDB units which are unoccupied, as well as the percentage of completed HDB units which are unoccupied in each of the past five years to date.
To this question, the MND provided the following answer:
“Over the past 5 years, the annual average number of unoccupied HDB units ranged from about 1,400 to 3,900. These units make up approximately 0.1 per cent to 0.4 per cent of completed flats.”
And for Parliamentary sittings at a later date, Mr Chua also asked the Prime Minister what the projected rate of population growth in Singapore is over the next three years, broken down by citizens, permanent residents and non-residents.
Assoc Prof Lim also asked a question for a later sitting, this time posed to the Minister for Transport. His query involved staggered school commencement time, asking if the Ministry has studied whether doing so would ease traffic near schools, especially during the morning rush hour.
Earlier this year, the Sengkang MP had brought up delaying school start times during the Committee of Supply 2022 debate in March. /TISG