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former Malaysian minister has suggested an innovative solution to tackle brain drain in the healthcare industry.
If medical professionals educated in Malaysia choose to seek employment in Singapore, Singapore should be charged a compensation fee, said Abdul Rahman Dahlan.
The money can then be used to improve healthcare services for Malaysians.
"That is the only fair thing to do," said the former minister in charge of the Economic Planning Unit, in a Sep. 9 Facebook post.
Not a punishment
Rahman was offering a solution on Malaysia's acute shortage of healthcare professionals.
While some of the reasons for the shortage may be self-inflicted, others are due to "aggressive 'poaching' by foreign countries", he said.
He accused Singapore of "flexing its financial muscles" and "weaponising [its] deep pockets", in its bid to attract Malaysian healthcare staff to the island state.
"Most Malaysians feel frustrated and perplexed especially when they feel Singapore, as an important ASEAN member state, is showing lack of empathy for Malaysia’s medical predicament," he said.
The compensation would help even the playing field — not to punish Malaysian healthcare professionals, but to be a "compensatory mechanism after having been trained locally at the expense of taxpayers".
"I believe Singapore would not have any problem paying back the subsidies," he said.
Why compensation?
Rahman explained that Malaysian healthcare professionals make use of taxpayer-paid training and education subsidies.
The proposed compensation, as such, would be a means for Malaysia to recover these costs.
The money could then be spent on improving healthcare services to Malaysians, particularly in underserved areas.
Alternatively, a levy could be imposed on Malaysian doctors and nurses working in Singapore.
The proposed compensation should also be borne by Singapore employers, not Malaysian employees, Rahman stressed.
"That way, the Malaysian government can mitigate some of its losses by way subsidies spent on its students," he added, saying that this would make the scenario more "equitable".
Win-win solution
The ex-minister framed his approach as a win-win solution.
"Hospitals in Singapore get the doctors and nurses they need, while the Malaysian government recovers the huge subsidies it spent on these doctors and nurses and reinvests that money in the provision of healthcare services," he explained.
He did however acknowledge the unprecedented nature of such an approach, and suggested that studies be conducted to fine-tune this proposed policy.
"But in the meantime, in the spirit of ASEAN camaraderie, no member country should be allowed to take advantage of other member countries in an unfair manner," he said.
"It’s simply not right!"
Brain drain
Brain drain among healthcare professionals from Malaysia to Singapore has long been an issue.
Earlier this year, the Singapore Ministry of Health (MOH) held a recruitment drive at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, offering a S$110,000 starting salary in a bid to attract Malaysian doctors and general practitioners to work in Singapore.
In 2022, the dean of the Universiti Malaya said that at least 30 of its "best and brightest" medical graduates left Malaysia for Singapore each year.
This is despite spending almost RM1 million (S$305,000) on training for each student, she said.
The same year, a Johor government official cited higher salaries in Singapore as a primary reason for a shortage of nurses in the Malaysian state.
"I have a friend whose pay as a nurse in Singapore equals that of a specialist doctor in Malaysia due to the currency exchange rate," he said.
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