At the Ong Teng Cheong Labour Leadership Institute’s graduation ceremony today (16 Nov), Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Grace Fu, who was the guest-of-honour, told the audience that while the labour movement addresses the needs of the workers, there are some pitfalls that Singapore should avoid.
She then shared 2 examples from her recent visits to Sweden and Japan this year.
She said while Sweden has one the world’s most comprehensive collective agreements on remuneration, leave, working hours and pension scheme, including minimum wage, these benefits have led to a high cost of employment, loss of competitiveness of the companies and youth unemployment.
Sweden has one of the highest ratios of youth unemployment in Europe.
In Japan, despite the government’s support to bring foreign nurses to work in Japan to address the ageing population, the union resisted this, fearing that the workers’ pay will be affected.
As a result, the quality of healthcare has dropped in Japan, with long waiting lines in clinics and poor emergency health care.
In other words, she is implying that Singapore should carry on with its current pro-business policies of having lesser comprehensive protections for Singaporean workers and continual importing cheap foreign labour into the country.
In her example of poor quality of healthcare in Japan, a McKinsey study [Link] showed that it did not have anything to do with not importing cheap foreign nurses into Japan.
McKinsey said in the study:
Underlying the challenges facing Japan are several unique features of its health care system, which provides universal coverage through a network of more than 4,000 public and private payers. All residents must have health insurance, which covers a wide array of services, including many that most other health systems don’t (for example, some treatments, such as medicines for colds, that are not medically necessary).
The system imposes virtually no controls over access to treatment. There is no gatekeeper: patients are free to consult any provider—primary care or specialist—at any time, without proof of medical necessity and with full insurance coverage. Similarly, Japan places few controls over the supply of care. Physicians may practice wherever they choose, in any area of medicine, and are reimbursed on a fee-for-service basis. There is also no central control over the country’s hospitals, which are mostly privately owned.
These characteristics are important reasons for Japan’s difficulty in funding its system, keeping supply and demand in check, and providing quality care.
Hence, Ms Fu shouldn’t just jump into conclusion that poor quality of healthcare in Japan is due to the disbarment of foreign nurses to work in Japan.
TR Emeritus
*Article first appeared on www.TREmeritus.com