Making healthcare accessible in Singapore

 11-Dec-15, The Straits Times 

Singapore will seek to improve healthcare accessibility for patients, and promote innovation and collaboration in the medical technology sector, said Minister for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran yesterday.

Image: APACMed

To boost healthcare accessibility, he said the healthcare professional workforce has to grow by 50 per cent, or about 20,000, by 2020. Singapore will also add at least 1,700 acute beds and double the number of community hospital beds to 3,000 by 2020, he added. Digital technologies that support the healthcare area will be another area of investment.

The output of the medical technology manufacturing sector has more than tripled from $1.5 billion to $5.5 billion since 2000. Over the same period, Singapore's manufacturing workforce for this sector also more than doubled from 4,000 to 10,000 employees. Today, there are about 25 research and development centres and close to 50 regional headquarters of leading medical technology firms in Singapore.

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