David Brill
An extra $2 million is being invested in further training for health professionals, the National Healthcare Group (NHG) announced recently.
This year’s Health Manpower Development Plan (HMDP) Fellowship Awards are to total around $6 million – an increase from last year’s figure of $4.1 million.
The awards, which are also supported by funding from the Ministry of Health (MOH), enable healthcare workers to undergo specialist training attachments at institutions in Singapore and overseas.
A total of 138 NHG staff – 50 doctors, 48 nurses, 35 allied health professionals and 5 administrators – were named as awardees by Mr. Michael Lim, Chairman of NHG.
“The HMDP allows our healthcare professionals to keep abreast with the best and most advanced in the world,” said Lim in a speech at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).
“Medicine is a talent-intensive business so we must continue to invest in our people … we will use the HMDP awards to fill gaps in our healthcare system to meet the cluster’s long-term strategic plans and national priorities.”
Three new categories of award have been created, including the MOH HMDP Fellowship in Mental Health, which provides full sponsorship for further study in occupational therapy, clinical psychology and other areas within the field.
Ms Huang Wanping, one of the recipients, is presently a psychologist at the IMH having previously worked with the Singapore Police Force. The award will enable her to specialize as a clinical neuropsychologist by completing a 2-year masters at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
The other new categories are the MOH HMDP Award for Strategic Nursing Development, and the HMDP (Team Based) award, which was given to teams from National University Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital and the National Skin Centre.
The HMDP was created in the 1980s by the MOH, but administration has since been devolved to NHG and SingHealth. The programme is responsible for inviting overseas expert to lead training programmes in Singapore, as well as sponsoring the nation’s healthcare workers to undertake further training abroad.
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