More foreign doctors to increase capacity and lower costs
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Cheaper cost of Healthcare with more foreign doctors?
Increase capacity to reduce cost?
Must be another of your delusional thoughts. In your dreams baby!
There are guidelines on medical fees.
http://www.sma.org.sg/guidelines/fees.html
This is effectively a price ceiling or price floor, depending on the angle you are looking from.
If there are currently 100 doctors for a poulation of 100,000 (with a doctor to population ratio of 1:1000), charges are say $20 (fees guidelines according to SMA) per consultation. If you increase the doctors to 200, prices will not fall, because the doctor who previously made say $10,000 with a population of 100,000, will only make $5,000 (because he lost half of his income to the new doctors). Do you think the doctor will futher decrease his consultation fees to $10? So that he can make an income of $2,500. Of course, like you said before, this doctor now making less can either face up to the cheaper competition (lowering his charges), or migrate to another country which pays higher.
Moreover charging of lower prices might not increase the number of patients, as the doctor to patient relationship is an inelastic relationship. You do not change your family doctor just because an Indian doctor charges cheaper.
It might decrease waiting time in the public outpatients clinic, but that depends on the ability of these Indian doctors to speak Hokkien, Cantonese, Foochow, Hakka, Teochew, Mandarin to our elderly folks which forms the majority of outpatient visits. Else they would need an interpreter just to talk to these folks, which looms the possibility of malpractice due to wrongful interpretation (words change meanings when it's passed to another person). -
Foreign doctors will be recruited to work in the public hospitals, not become your neighborhood GP. Their license will be conditional or limited to the institution they are assigned to.
As usual, some people just don't read or cannot understand simple English. -
my friend works as a doctor, and he says that it's a rule of thumb to charge below the medical guidelines, which actually states for consultation fees to be somewhere between $20-50. most private doctors charge below $20 for consultation, and cost price for medication.
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Only hope standard is maintained... I don't need to read more crap everyday.
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Well, I think of your dumbass topic in a more global scale, not like some who think in a narrow perspective.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:Foreign doctors will be recruited to work in the public hospitals, not become your neighborhood GP. Their license will be conditional or limited to the institution they are assigned to.
As usual, some people just don't read or cannot understand simple English.
Your points or rather what you cut and paste from others, contradicts your topic of "More foreign doctors to increase capacity and lower cost". Your logic bemuses me.
First of all you claimed that the doctors are overworked, so they have to increase doctors to increase capacity and decrease waiting time. If the hospitals are already spending say $50 million on pay for the current doctors, they employ more foreign doctors, say increase pay another $25 million to $75 million. How can that translate to lower cost? Please explain? Even if cost is saved, the cost savings will not be passed on to patients, because price levels is sticky downwards.
How do you suggest that they close the language barrier? Because most outpatient public clinics are frequented by older folks who only speak dialects.
You are a doctor? A Ph.D is Janitorial Science? -
If you can employ 2 foreign doctors for the salary of one local doctor, won't you increase the manpower without increasing costs? Simple math but I suppose some people cannot add or subtract.Originally posted by maurizio13:First of all you claimed that the doctors are overworked, so they have to increase doctors to increase capacity and decrease waiting time. If the hospitals are already spending say $50 million on pay for the current doctors, they employ more foreign doctors, say increase pay another $25 million to $75 million. How can that translate to lower cost? Please explain? Even if cost is saved, the cost savings will not be passed on to patients, because price levels is sticky downwards.
How do you suggest that they close the language barrier? Because most outpatient public clinics are frequented by older folks who only speak dialects.
You are a doctor? A Ph.D is Janitorial Science?
Language barrier will be a problem for some, but using the ah-mahs to translate is cheaper than using local doctors. By bringing in doctors from mainland China, Malaysia and India; the language problem can be solved.
Ren bu zhi e bu yun, bu yi junzi hu?
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Where you get your figure of 1/2 price for the Indian doctor? Any official source, or you pluck out from your @rse?Originally posted by oxford mushroom:If you can employ 2 foreign doctors for the salary of one local doctor, won't you increase the manpower without increasing costs? Simple math but I suppose some people cannot add or subtract.
Language barrier will be a problem for some, but using the ah-mahs to translate is cheaper than using local doctors. By bringing in doctors from mainland China, Malaysia and India; the language problem can be solved.
Ren bu zhi e bu yun, bu yi junzi hu?
Are you suggesting replacing all the core doctors from hospital with Indian doctors? Maybe you can explain your advanced mathematics, on how to achieve cost savings with numbers (instead of spewing garbage)?
Ah-mahs you provide huh? Don't need pay?
Suggest you go fleet your mouth before posting.
Hehehe
nin neh guay sar!!
Hehehe -
They only increase medical students intake by 50, why don't take in more rather than employing foreign doctors.
We have a lot of straight A students who cannot get in, their parents have to spend a lot of money to educate them overseas. After graduation, they don't come back (I have a relative who is now practising in Sydney). -
The problem with distribution cannot be solved by increasing the number of local doctors. So what if you produce 200 doctors a year if only 50 remains in the public hospitals after 5 years?Originally posted by gerrykoh:They only increase medical students intake by 50, why don't take in more rather than employing foreign doctors.
We have a lot of straight A students who cannot get in, their parents have to spend a lot of money to educate them overseas. After graduation, they don't come back (I have a relative who is now practising in Sydney). -
Sob Sob. My dream is to become a NeuroScientist. I work kampathev
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"Bangalore, Jan 28 (IANS) Karnataka has finalised an $800-million project to revamp its healthcare infrastructure and train health professionals at the grassroots - a scheme that is expected to benefit over 45 million people.....Originally posted by maurizio13:"Where you get your figure of 1/2 price for the Indian doctor? Any official source, or you pluck out from your @rse?
...The minister said the salaries of contract doctors in the state were under review and may be increased. The government is planning to increase the salary of contract doctors to Rs.19,000 and specialised doctors to Rs.20,000, he added." (Exerpt from http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1913342,000600030009.htm)
Rs.20,000 for specialised doctors is only S$695.670 a month....
That figure is probably right. Here's an entry in the national newspaper from a reader's letter:
"Looks like Shashi Tharoor has not done his homework. He knows the salary of a doctor in the U.S. but is he aware of the salary in India? In an expensive city like Bangalore , the average monthly salary of a specialist is Rs 15,000-25,000. Even prestigious hospitals do not offer more than Rs. 50,000 a month, even after six years of experience in the U.S. (which by the way is a draw-back). First, let there be better living conditions, and remuneration for doctors. Then people can ask why doctors still go abroad?
Ish Kaur,
Bangalore " (http://www.hindu.com/mag/2006/12/17/stories/2006121700210600.htm)
And btw, I cannot pluck anything from my @rse...your head is in the way -
Originally posted by oxford mushroom:
Wow, we can hooked doctors from there.
"Bangalore, Jan 28 (IANS) Karnataka has finalised an $800-million project to revamp its healthcare infrastructure and train health professionals at the grassroots - a scheme that is expected to benefit over 45 million people.....
...The minister said the salaries of contract doctors in the state were under review and may be increased. [b]The government is planning to increase the salary of contract doctors to Rs.19,000 and specialised doctors to Rs.20,000, he added." (Exerpt from http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1913342,000600030009.htm)
Rs.20,000 for specialised doctors is only S$695.670 a month....
That figure is probably right. Here's an entry in the national newspaper from a reader's letter:
"Looks like Shashi Tharoor has not done his homework. He knows the salary of a doctor in the U.S. but is he aware of the salary in India? In an expensive city like Bangalore , the average monthly salary of a specialist is Rs 15,000-25,000. Even prestigious hospitals do not offer more than Rs. 50,000 a month, even after six years of experience in the U.S. (which by the way is a draw-back). First, let there be better living conditions, and remuneration for doctors. Then people can ask why doctors still go abroad?
Ish Kaur,
Bangalore " (http://www.hindu.com/mag/2006/12/17/stories/2006121700210600.htm)
And btw, I cannot pluck anything from my @rse...your head is in the way
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Even if the cost is like 1/2 price for Indian doctors, you will still not achieve any cost savings if you replace all the core Singapore doctors with Indian doctors. They currently employ 3,156 doctors (say $100 million), they plan to increase this to 6,312 doctors, so by replacing all Singaporean doctors with Indian doctors, you just maintained the cost level, with the employment of ah mahs to traverse the language barrier, that is an extra cost.Originally posted by oxford mushroom:"Bangalore, Jan 28 (IANS) Karnataka has finalised an $800-million project to revamp its healthcare infrastructure and train health professionals at the grassroots - a scheme that is expected to benefit over 45 million people.....
...The minister said the salaries of contract doctors in the state were under review and may be increased. [b]The government is planning to increase the salary of contract doctors to Rs.19,000 and specialised doctors to Rs.20,000, he added." (Exerpt from http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1913342,000600030009.htm)
Rs.20,000 for specialised doctors is only S$695.670 a month....
That figure is probably right. Here's an entry in the national newspaper from a reader's letter:
"Looks like Shashi Tharoor has not done his homework. He knows the salary of a doctor in the U.S. but is he aware of the salary in India? In an expensive city like Bangalore , the average monthly salary of a specialist is Rs 15,000-25,000. Even prestigious hospitals do not offer more than Rs. 50,000 a month, even after six years of experience in the U.S. (which by the way is a draw-back). First, let there be better living conditions, and remuneration for doctors. Then people can ask why doctors still go abroad?
Ish Kaur,
Bangalore " (http://www.hindu.com/mag/2006/12/17/stories/2006121700210600.htm)
And btw, I cannot pluck anything from my @rse...your head is in the way
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[quote]Originally posted by oxford mushroom:
THE door has been opened wider to foreign doctors, as Singapore moves towards a new goal of having one doctor per patient in public hospitals.
The public sector currently employs 3,156 doctors - which translates to one doctor for every two patients at any given time.
If you are a doctor, you are sure one dumbass doctor.
Hehehe -
I am still waiting for you to show me how you do voodoo mathematics!
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Frankly I would not see a doctor with an MBBS from calcutta, delhi or whichever part of India.
Got misdiagnosed by one before...don't play play . My mom also kenna a few times when hospital assign her some graduate from indian medical school . Besides working as a nurse , I have to work with foreign doctors . The doctors who graduated from india, talk alot , cannot do . Only jump at the chance of procedures but pushing all blame to other doctors if something goes wrong. I don't trust them at all especially on night shift. One misdiagnosed a Ventricular Tachycardia for normal rhythmn - Ox would know this life threatening condition . My colleague was like hey this ECG doesn't look normal and I look and said Shit ..prepare to call code soon. I had to overwrite the damn doctor from india , and call for registrar. Then told the registrar what this guy did - he went actually blame the lighting ! MY GOD.
And then you have DR Jayant Patel aka Dr Death , who trained in India and then went for training in USA and got banned then he lied to come into Queensland and I pity the little girl who saw him anyhow plunging the needle 50 times into her father and now he is claiming that Australia is racist and picking on him.
Sorry . I don't give a shit about graduates from some new delhi or whatever indian medical school. Enough is enough. -
what about pretty foreign nurses?
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Our doctors are just facing what the rest of the population has been facing for a long time, namely, that anyone can come to Singapore and work.
For donkey years, our male population has been moaning that foreigners are treated similar to them, despite our own Singaporeans having sacrificed the best two and a half years (or two years) of their lives to the duty of training and defending the country. This has led to the oft-heard comment that being a Malaysian (or Chinese or Indian) in Singapore is better than being a Singaporean!
There is another flip side to the coin to this, not just about it being unfair to our own doctors, who paid throught their noses to study in NUS Medicine, and got bonded in the bargain. These Indian doctors are surely not be attending to our rich and affluent, but rather to the poor and needy. So the waiting times may be reduced, but they will be attended to by doctors who do not understand their own languages. As all know, medicine is as much about healing as about comforting. Deny it as one might, the difference in language is surely a hindrance to it. Put it another way, would our rich and powerful be willing to be doctored by one of these "bangla" doctors? How many times have we heard our old complaing that these Indian doctors in the polyclinics have no idea what concerns are being voiced? How many of our parents, uncles or aunts would prefer to be seen by them?
Surely the solution should be to increase the intake such that there would be enough doctors to cater to our own needs in the long term, rather than permanently using these Indian doctors to make up the shortfall. Are they really cheaper? Can someone come up with hard facts that they WILL be paid lower salaries ALWAYS, or rather, only lower salaries in the first year or first two years. If they are going to be paid a similar salary to our own doctors eventually, why not just take in more Singaporean medical students? Why are we paying the same salary to foreign doctors, when they are not as desirable as compared to Singaporean doctors, and most would eventually take the money back to India?
As to Mushroom's contention that most would still move to the private sector even if we are to take in more medical students, I don't think so. If we produce enough doctors, the private sector would be so flooded with doctors that there would be enough ALSO for the public sector.
As it is, many aspiring Singaporeans are forced to go overseas to pursue their dreams of practising medicine, resulting in millions of dollars going to foreign medical colleges. Singaporeans who graduate overseas would also find it more easy to continue working and finally settling down overseas, resulting in a double whammy of losing both money (for their fees) and their talents (when they migrate). As to overproducing doctors, that should not even be an issue. Isn't the government pursuing the policy of promoting bioscience? What better people to become researchers and clinical scientists if not doctors? Armed with a medical degree (and the knowledge), they can move on to become even more effective administrators, scientists, researchers, lecturers etc. in the bioscientific field.
Anyway, this move of bringing in Indian doctors smacks of the same old knee-jerk, short-term reaction to a present problem, instead of implementing a long-term course of action that may take more effort. We can bring them in for the short-term, but there should be plans to educate enought Singaporeans to man our hospitals in the long run. -
Wait: 2 Indian doctors for the price of 1 local doctor?! Who are you kidding? The Economics of the issue simply means the local hospitals would prefer to employ masses of foreign doctors rather than local ones. Are you kidding me on this?
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The public sector currently employs 3,156 doctors - which translates to one doctor for every two patients at any given time.
1:2 my ass. what kind of data is that?
one just need to visit any A&E dept, polyclinic to know that this data isnt not true. or any one time, 3/4 of the docs. are resting at home.
if govt are implementinggood policy that are pro ppl, why are many singaporean still complaining about the govt. why are their support are dwingling in the last election. we are all singaporean, it dont make sense for us to see the downfall of the country.
OM for goodness sake, next time u r back in singapore try to visit a govt hospital and judge for yourself whether you still agree 1:2 doc to patient ratio is still true. before you can judge the gound, try to see it yourself first. -
Well, I think of your dumbass topic in a more global scale, not like some who think in a narrow perspective.
Your points or rather what you cut and paste from others, contradicts your topic of "More foreign doctors to increase capacity and lower cost". Your logic bemuses me.
First of all you claimed that the doctors are overworked, so they have to increase doctors to increase capacity and decrease waiting time. If the hospitals are already spending say $50 million on pay for the current doctors, they employ more foreign doctors, say increase pay another $25 million to $75 million. How can that translate to lower cost? Please explain? Even if cost is saved, the cost savings will not be passed on to patients, because price levels is sticky downwards.
How do you suggest that they close the language barrier? Because most outpatient public clinics are frequented by older folks who only speak dialects.
well said i share the same sentiment as well. in can only save cost if we retrench all singapore docs. and replace them by private ones.
what will happen?
1. patient go to hospital need to speak indian accent english so that they medical problem could be understand by the doc. or in worse case, we have to speak " oxford english".
2. ppl start to lose confidence in hospital healthcare standard, ppl start to flock to private ones and that would result in private docs. damand and supply rule, they increase fees. what next? relax rules for indians docs. to private practice?
when will it all end?
it ponders me sometime why the same mediciine sold in malaysia is cheaper than in singapore? taxes? cost of business? probably another way is for govt hospistal to better manage their own supply chain. i bet most of the elitist hospital manager are not negotiating hard enough and getting undertable benefits from most pharmaceuticals company? -
Why don't we bring this process to the logical conclusion?
Sack all our own doctors, since they are too expensive. Close down NUS Medicine. Wait.......Why don't we close down NUS, NTU, SMU blah blah. Sack all Singaporeans in every field, and employ only foreigners in this country since they are cheaper?
Oh, actually, it won't work, hmmm, back to square one.....
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You see, it won't just happen that way. If they employ heck of a lot of foreign doctors who are hired far less than Singaporeans, the general *ahem* preference will be to hire more and more foreign doctors who will eventually squeeze out our local doctors and drive more to the private sector. Then you screw up the market by saturating it.Originally posted by sourketchup:Why don't we bring this process to the logical conclusion?
Sack all our own doctors, since they are too expensive. Close down NUS Medicine. Wait.......Why don't we close down NUS, NTU, SMU blah blah. Sack all Singaporeans in every field, and employ only foreigners in this country since they are cheaper?
Oh, actually, it won't work, hmmm, back to square one.....
To make matters worse, you then have to contend with these bloc of foreign doctors who will request for higher pay eventually (come on, these doctors are smart enough to ask for more pay for their services and Singapore's high costs will make any foreigner who ain't rich squirm.)
To put it simply: Grabbing foreign doctors will jsut change the whole dynamic of the market in possible ways we cannot easily foresee and then we are saddled with more problems before.
Let's not even think about whether or not people will benefit from this. -
Having avoided the topic - so as not to be seen as constantly pecking at OM - it seems that there is a growing number of antagonists bearing the cudgel towards OM and his views, and the OM antagonists are becoming as critically vocal as I have always been towards OM.
The absurdity of OM's views have been clinically dissected, and one can only wonder how could the mental faculty of a PhD be so miserably weak.
Being a Doctor in Medicine, OM seems to be proud of the fact that this Government is taking action - to resolve the current and expected crisis of medical care - by recognising foreign medical degrees and employing more doctors from low wage countries.
It is even more surprising that OM can even accept the fact that these foreign doctors will crowd out and replace the core of Singaporean doctors from the Public Health Care Sector. Can the Private Health Care Sector absorb all the doctors that have been replaced by cheap foreing doctors from the Third World ?
Is the problem being solved by employing cheap foreign doctors, only to create a mass pool of jobless doctors ?
Can the Private Sector absorb all the doctors who been retrenched ? -
As usual white co.ck suckers will not mentioned anything bad about white doctors http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_ShipmanOriginally posted by fymk:All you need is a Dr Death like Dr Jayant Patel who killed a few patients to know the impact .
Oxford is not worried because he is ALREADY in UK. HAHHA
As usual australia co.ck suckers will not mentioned about bad things that is happening in white country.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/rapist-doctor-gets-13-years/2007/01/25/1169594407650.html -
I personally think that the government did the right thing to allow more foreign doctors to serve in the public sector. What the government need to tackle now is the aging population because they need help and we can no longer depend on those greedy bunch of singapore doctors who are all looking at make big bucks in the private sector.
Honestly, why should singapore care too much about those greedy singapore doctors who chose to migrate overseas because of $$? The reason why they have chosen to become a doctor is not because of passion to treat the sick and poor, but to make big bucks for themselves so that they can live comfortably in big houses in district 9 and 10.