S’pore diversifies nursing talent pool with new nurses from Bhutan
There are currently 40 Bhutanese Asian Nursing Scholarship holders now serving in S’pore’s public healthcare sector.
In 2023, Darmita Rai, a nursing student at Khesar Gyalpo University of Medical Sciences in Bhutan, decided to pursue a career in Singapore after learning about the Asian Nursing Scholarship (ANS) from Bhutanese graduates in 2025. After completing her diploma, Rai became a staff nurse at Tan Tock Seng Hospital in May, joining a growing number of Bhutanese nurses in Singapore's public healthcare system.
According to MOH Holdings, around 40 Bhutanese ANS scholars are now working in the public healthcare sector. The fully-funded scholarship, which has produced 8,000 nurses since 1994, requires scholars to complete a three-year diploma in nursing at Ngee Ann Polytechnic or Nanyang Polytechnic before serving for six years in Singapore's acute and community hospitals.
Foreign nurses now make up about one-third of Singapore's nursing workforce, a vital component as the country ages. MOH has stabilized the annual attrition rate for foreign nurses at around 8 to 9 percent from 2023 to 2025, down from 14.5 percent in 2022 and 14.9 percent in 2021. Despite the growing pool of nurses, challenges persist, including a nursing manpower shortage driven by outflows to Australia, the UK, and temporary workforce absences.
Public healthcare institutions have introduced flexible work arrangements to attract and retain nurses, but these must become more accessible. To address the evolving nature of nursing, employers seek generalist nurses with broader skills and technology proficiency to coordinate patient care.
Written by urgent.news from Straits Times's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
