More than 25,000 nurses to get up to 2.1 months of base salary as retention payment

More than 25,000 nurses will receive a special payment of between 1.7 and 2.1 months of their base salary, as part of efforts to attract and retain nursing talent, said Health Minister Ong Ye Kung on Sunday (Jul 31).

Nurses serving in the public healthcare clusters, National Healthcare Group, National University Health System, and SingHealth, will be eligible for the package as their retention payment.

The package will also be extended to another 2,600 nurses working in publicly-funded community care organisations.

“We cannot thank our nurses enough for their tremendous work, especially in this long-drawn pandemic,” said Ong in a Facebook post on Sunday.

“So this is an important nurses’ retention payment to attract and retain our nursing talents. We will support them in every way we can.”

Aug 1 is Nurses’ Day. The 2022 Nurse Special Payment (NSP) Package recognises the hard work and contribution of Singapore’s nurses, said the Ministry of Health in a separate release on Sunday. The payment will be calculated based on the nurses’ base salary as at Dec 1, 2022.

This comprises the regular NSP of 0.5 months, which will be paid out in December 2022, as well as the enhanced NSP of between 1.2 and 1.6 months, which will be split equally into two tranches to be paid out in March 2023 and September 2023 to nurses who remain in continuous service with their employing organisation.

“As our population ages, the demand for healthcare services and manpower will continue to increase,” said MOH.

“The Ministry of Health is committed to building up a local core of nursing workforce to meet our future needs by improving the attractiveness of the nursing profession, and growing the local nursing training pipelines for both fresh graduates and mid-career entrants.”

The public healthcare clusters will share the details of the NSP with their nursing staff in the public healthcare institutions.

The Agency for Integrated Care will follow-up with the publicly-funded community care organisations on the funding details for their sector.

On Friday, Ong announced that nurses would get an enhanced payment package for 2022 and 2023 as part of efforts to build up Singapore’s healthcare workforce and keep jobs in the sector attractive.

The base salaries of public healthcare nurses have been raised by between 5 percent and 14 percent following a review of their remuneration last year. The first phase of the increase was in July 2021, while the second phase of the increase was in July 2022.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES