WITH more Singaporeans graduating from nursing courses here, hospitals say they are now relying less on foreign nurses.
Changi General Hospital and KK Women's and Children's Hospital (KKH) stopped hiring foreign nurses last year, while Singapore General Hospital stopped three years ago.
All three are under the SingHealth group.
The National Healthcare Group (NHG) still recruits foreign nurses but says the number has decreased in recent years.
Ministry of Health (MOH) figures show that the percentage of foreign nurses in public health-care institutions has decreased from 25 per cent in 2003 to 18 per cent last year.
Checks with NHG and SingHealth confirmed this drop.
NHG's foreign nurses now make up 18 per cent of its total pool, down from 28 per cent in 2004.
At SingHealth, the proportion of foreign nurses is at a four-year low - 10 per cent today, compared to 25 to 30 per cent four years ago.
Both pointed to two key reasons for the trend: a higher number of nursing graduates from local institutions and the tendency for the attrition rate among foreign nurses to be high.
Nanyang Polytechnic produced 728 graduates last year, up from 651 in 2004 and 557 in 2003. It said that about 98 per cent of its Diploma in Nursing graduates are employed within three to six months of leaving school.
And Institute of Technical Education (ITE) nursing graduates have more than doubled - from about 200 in 2002, to 550 last year.
Singaporeans' rising interest in a nursing career appears to be linked to better remuneration.
In June 2001, fresh nursing diploma graduates could expect a starting pay of between $1,500 and $1,900. Today, diploma and degree holders can expect between $2,100 and $3,498, while ITE graduates can expect to be paid between $1,600 and $2,664.
Another attraction is the faster career progression that nurses enjoy these days.
Ms Tan Wee King, president of the Singapore Nurses Association, said that as recently as five years ago, it would take 10 years to become a nursing officer earning about $5,000. It can now take as little as six years.
She added that nurses also have more opportunities to upgrade their skills and further their education.
And as more institutions offer courses, the number of locally trained nurses will continue to rise.
Ngee Ann Polytechnic, for example, started a new nursing course last year with an intake of 170. This year, the intake rose to 301.
The National University of Singapore (NUS) now offers a nursing degree.
This year's pioneer batch has 50 students who were chosen from 2,400 applicants.
Turning to local nurses will also help stem the problem of the high attrition rate among foreign nurses, many of whom come here to work for a few years and then go on to other countries such as Britain, Australia and United States.
According to MOH, last year's attrition rate for foreign nurses in public health-care institutions was 23 per cent, compared to 8 per cent for local nurses.
SingHealth's nursing director for its Outram campus, Madam Lim Swee Hia, said the high attrition rates affect patient care and service. It is also tiring to have to keep training and retraining staff.
But the situation is much more stable now, with SingHealth's overall attrition rate down to 8.9 per cent last year, from 11.4 per cent in 2002.
Madam Lim does not foresee a time when Singapore will no longer need foreign nurse.
'We have nurses here on clinical attachment and scholarship where students from China and Myanmar come here to study and work.
'We definitely need some foreign talent because there are so many things that we can learn from them,' she said.