Temasek Foundation Grants S$1.5M to Aid
Hainan Nursing Training Run By Nanyang Polytechnic

Singapore: Standards of healthcare in Hainan, China are set to improve as Temasek Foundation (TF) announced its grant of over S$1.5m to train senior Hainan health officials, nurse educators and clinical nurses over two years. Training will be provided by Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) and administered by NYP International (NYPi), NYP’s international arm.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed today aims to raise healthcare and nursing standards in Hainan, and build a reservoir of nursing trainers for skills transfer. The MOU was signed between Mr Lin Cheng Ton, Chief Executive Officer of NYPi and Ms Sui Zhi Ye, Deputy Director of Public Health Bureau of Hainan Province.

The programme will train 156 Hainan healthcare staff in Singapore at NYP’s School of Health Sciences. Training has already commenced with a team of eight senior Hainan officials in NYP for a one-week study visit in early March.

The programme will help the Hainan Public Health Bureau (HPHB) to acquire new nursing management practices and nursing training pedagogy, and to develop more nursing specialists in critical care, emergency and perioperative nursing.

The programme, designed to help Hainan’s nursing professionals to develop and build their own self-sustaining capabilities, marks Temasek Foundation’s first funding for a healthcare-related programme.

Apart from this MOU, a separate ceremony will be held in Hainan on 19 March to mark the launch of this project.

A Comprehensive Training Programme

The programme, jointly developed by TF and NYPi, aims to build up a reservoir of nursing trainers who will in turn develop and localise the training curriculum. They will also be transferring their skills and knowledge in identified specialist areas to at least 10% of Hainan’s 11,000 strong nursing population two years after the programme.

To ensure maximum impact, the programme will kick-off with a series of training targeted at Hainan’s healthcare leadership. Since early March, a team of eight senior healthcare officials has been in Singapore for a one-week study visit to gain a better understanding of the Singapore model of nursing education and its healthcare system. There will also be Executive Training programmes for management staff in 2008 and 2009, with each programme lasting two-weeks.

The second part of the programme focuses on a series of Train-the-Trainers courses for nurse educators and clinicians. All training will be conducted in Mandarin. Four training tracks are being offered:

a) nursing pedagogy
b) critical care
c) emergency
d) perioperative nursing.

Equipped with new skills and knowledge, these trainers and educators can, in turn, train more of such specialist nurses in China. This approach will help achieve a multiplier effect. The nursing pedagogy track lasts three weeks, while the remaining three tracks are extensive ten-week courses.

Besides classroom instruction, the training also involves clinical attachments in relevant clinical and hospital settings.

School of Health Sciences: A Leader in Healthcare Training

The training for this programme will be conducted by staff from NYP’s School of Health Sciences (SHS), a pioneer and leader of tertiary health sciences education and training in Singapore since 1992. The School provides a rigorous and responsive curriculum, designed to groom healthcare professionals skilled in understanding advanced technologies and adaptable in the changing healthcare environment.

Hainan participants will be exposed to the School of Health Science’s e-learning database, anatomy resource centre, and its many well-equipped laboratories. They will experience the latest technologies brought into the classroom such as the adoption of high-fidelity human stimulators and the integration of an authentic clinical environment into the teaching process. They will also have the chance to explore the School’s internally developed innovative web-based virtual ward courseware and computer-based training packages.

 

Rreleased 5 March 2008