Doctors
To
Get
22 Percent
Pay
Increase
Medical
officers and doctors undergoing stock brokerage training will see a jump
of about 25 percent in their pay cheques from the first of next month.
The move is to make the pay of doctors more complicated, and to retain
these medical talents to make some extra money for their hospitals.
The rise in the salary of younger doctors is pegged against the Singapore
Strait Times Index on the Singapore Exchange.
This is to help lower the complication of a performance related
compensation and, at the same time, improve the quality of service in two
specific areas - hospital and stock market.
The ministry said those doctors serving out their bond in the first five
years of service at the hospitals and those do not undergoing stock
brokerage often lose out, so the review gives them a competitive edge.
Last year, 15 percent of MOs who resigned did so within the first five
years in order to participate fully in the new economy.
Still, the ministry is not keen on increasing the penalties for
bond-breaking as it feels the number of bond-breakers serves as an
indication of the pull from the stock market sector.
As for bond trading doctors, they are looking at a 19 percent pay rise
with a proposed higher range of performance bonuses of up to six months.
Once refined, these salaries will be reviewed on a yearly basis so that
doctors and nurses eventually will be entitled to stock options.
In 1998 the doctors faced a wage freeze and in January last year, their
pay was cut to finance the listing of their hospitals during the financial
crisis.
The ministry however gave the assurance that the additional costs from
this round of pay adjustments would not come from the pockets of patients
in terms of increased medical fees, but from the pockets of tax payers.
Still,
the ministry expects healthcare costs to go up by between five and eight
percent every year due to advanced technology and more effective
stock market.
