23-Nov-15 More than a quarter of the doctors in Singapore's public healthcare sector are foreigners. At the end of 2014 public hospitals and polyclinics had more than 2,100 foreign doctors and the number continues to grow as Singapore faces a shortage of trained medical staff. Most are primary care doctors, with only 477 foreign specialists. [image: ST / Yeo Kai Wen]

23-Nov-15 Vietnam's will increase public hospital fees in early 2016, instead of Dec-15, Nguyen Nam Lien, the Ministry of Health has said. With this fee increase, patients will pay two to four times more than when using healthcare services at state-owned hospitals. Currently 73% of the population is covered by health insurance, which means 25 mn people are self-paying. [image: Dantri]

19-Nov-15 In a bid to upgrade the quality of medical staff in primary healthcare, the Indonesian government and 18 universities will begin providing specialized education to medical students and practitioners in 2016. There are 107,000 primary care physicians at present, with the government estimating it needs 40,000 to undergo training and education. [image: Indoboom]

19-Nov-15 Thermo Fisher Scientific has announced the opening of a new GMP facility in Singapore. The new site is intended to meet growing demand for clinical supply services in the region. It will provide pharma and biotech companies with a one-stop service for clinical supplies – including GMP storage, labelling, packaging, comparator sourcing, handling, distribution and returns management. [image: Thermo Fisher Scientific]

18-Nov-15 According to the Malaysian Healthcare Travel Council, Malaysia attracted 880,000 medical tourists in 2014 and wants to boost these numbers by 10% in 2015 and eventually cross the 1 mn mark by 2016. The MHTC is now focusing more intensely on “halal health treatments” to entice medical travellers from Muslim countries, such as those in the Gulf Cooperation Council. [image: Global Health and Travel]