PERCENTAGES OF MALES AND FEMALES IN MEDICAL PROFESSION AND MEDICAL SCHOOL

Mdm Claire Chiang See Ngoh asked the Minister for Health, from 1989 to 1998, what comparative percentages of male and female doctors left the profession every year; and how his Ministry justifies the one-third quota for women applying for medical school and reconciles the practice with its obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Mr Yeo Cheow Tong: A consistently higher proportion of female doctors do not work, or work part-time, compared to male doctors. Over the last 10 years, the percentage of female doctors who were not working or working only part-time ranged from about 16% to nearly 19%. The comparative figure for male doctors is 5% to 8%.

There are two key reasons for imposing the intake quota on female medical students. First, the cost of training one medical student is much higher than that for the other disciplines in the university. It costs over $350,000 over 5 years to train a medical student, 80% of which is subsidised by the Government. The total subsidy for medical students is about 5 times that for students in other disciplines. Given the limited intake of medical students and the need to optimise the outcome, a higher proportion of male medical students will ensure that more doctors will remain full time in the workforce to meet the projected demand for medical services and contribute to society.

The second reason is that a higher proportion of female doctors prefer to work in positions which do not involve irregular working hours. Such positions are very limited in our health institutions.

Equal access to education remains one of our cardinal principles. Women make up 52% of the local university student population in the 1998/1999 intake. Equal access to university education does not mean that every student has a free choice as to the type of course he or she may pursue, as this depends on the number of places available for each course. The number of available places depends on several considerations, such as our national needs and the economic cost of providing such courses. With respect to medical education, our economic and human resources do not allow us the luxury of providing a medical education to all for its own sake. For these reasons, the Government has imposed the one-third quota in the medical course. However, we do not regard this policy to be in violation of our obligations under CEDAW. It is not discrimination against women on grounds of gender per se. It is because we have to address a real and practical problem. Let me also add the Government does not prevent women from enrolling in medical courses overseas and qualifying as doctors. There is no quota in the number of women doctors who practise medicine in Singapore.