With global health crises like Covid-19 and monkeypox, healthcare workers have become more essential than ever in our community.
As such, it is important to take steps to build up the workforce.
Last Friday (29 Jul), Health Minister Ong Ye Kung announced that the Ministry of Health (MOH) will be awarding nurses with enhanced packages as “retention payment” in 2022 and 2023.
In a recent update, Mr Ong shared that over 25,000 nurses will be receiving this package, which will offer up to 2.1 months of their base salary.
Mr Ong announced the details of the 2022 Nurse Special Payment (NSP) Package via Facebook on Sunday (31 Jul).
Source: Ong Ye Kung on Facebook
He stated that more than 25,000 nurses will receive an additional payment of between 1.7 to 2.1 months of their base salary.
This includes nurses currently working in the three public healthcare clusters — National Healthcare Group, National University Health System, and SingHealth.
Source: Ong Ye Kung on Facebook
Mr Ong added that the payment package will also extend to another 2,600 nurses serving in publicly-funded community care organisations like nursing homes.
Acknowledging that both the pandemic and business-as-usual (BAU) workloads have been heavy burdens for nurses, he noted that the package is a form of retention payment to attract and retain talents in the industry.
He also declared that they will continue to support healthcare workers in every way they can.
We cannot thank our nurses enough for their tremendous work, especially in this long-drawn pandemic.
According to a press release by MOH, the retention payment package is also in celebration of Nurses’ Day today (1 Aug).
Source: Khoo Teck Puat Hospital on Facebook
They explained that the package is calculated based on nurses’ base salary as of 1 Dec 2022. This will comprise:
MOH further emphasised the need to increase manpower to match up to the demand for healthcare services.
To ensure the attraction and retention of staff in the industry, the ministry enhanced the base salaries of nurses in the public healthcare sector by 5% to 14%.
The first phase of the increase took place in July last year, and the second was in July this year.
The pandemic had served as a reminder of how important healthcare workers are to our society.
As such, there is definitely a need to keep developing this sector so that we can be ready for a health crisis.
Hopefully, these retention payments will help to address the manpower issues that the industry is currently facing.
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Featured image adapted from Ong Ye Kung on Facebook.
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