Ministry may look to foreigners
by Maggie Chong and Cheryl Lim

SINGAPORE - Singapore may be a developed country, but it has only 1,300 dentists in active practice - which translates to one dentist for every 3,400 people living here.

This lags far behind other developed countries like those in Europe, where the average ratio is 1:1000.

As a result, the Health Ministry is looking at ramping up the number of dentists here by between 60 and 80 per cent over the next 10 years.

It is studying a proposal to allow foreign dentists from the region to practise and train in Singapore under an accreditation scheme.

This could mean allowing registered foreign dentists at private training centres to treat patients while they are undergoing training.

Currently, Singapore produces just 40 dentists a year.

Professor Patrick Tseng, Chief Dental Officer at the Health Ministry explained: "Right now, the primary training centres are the universities and the national dental centres, the two public institutions.

"But we're trying to encourage the private dental centres to become accredited training centres as well, in which they can take in foreign students and train them and practise under short courses."

Private dental group, Q&M, aims to be one of the accredited training centres to provide advanced training for both local and foreign dentists.

Q&M will launch its courses once it gets a full set of guidelines from the Health Ministry. It also hopes to recruit dentists from neighbouring countries to work here.

"We're setting our sights on Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Philippines," said Dr Ng Chin Siau, Chief Executive Officer of Q&M Dental Group. "China is also another big market for us."

Q&M launched Singapore's largest dental centre at City Square Mall yesterday.

Set up at a cost of $3 million, the 12,000 square foot centre has 32 fully-furnished private consultation rooms.