Unhappy doctors
Inherited from previous regime are medical complaints of low pay, over-work; hard to resolve without fee hike and better managers.
May 22, 2004

Government doctors are stifled by shoddy treatment after long-suffering hard work.

A recent New Straits Times report detailed some of their complaints - low salaries, very long hours, lack of promotion opportunities.

Some don't even have desks and have to share them with nurses or lockers to keep their things.

As a result, government hospitals are losing doctors to the private sector, which in turn is worsening the problem.

Meanwhile, the Government is building more hospitals with better facilities to cater for a rise in the number of patients.

The shortage of specialists and doctors is becoming a major problem, which is forcing the government to recruit foreign specialists. It costs some M$500,000 per doctor for a three-year tenure.

The government is considering raising fees charged to foreigners seeking treatment in Malaysian hospitals.

An anonymous doctor at the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) posted his views on a private website, saying :-

"Sir, please let me offer you some insight.

There are three groups of doctors working at the UMMC - the academicians, the trainee specialists and service medical officers.

The academicians are the lecturers and consultants.

The trainee specialists are from all around the nation - these people (including myself) are there for a reason: paper chase. the service MOs are largely foreigners, recruited from Myanmar and Pakistan.

The service MOs (medical officers) are actually not interested to serve
the people. Ironically, these service MOs run core services such as Casualty and General OPD (or known here as RUKA).

They are foreigners and they are there for the money. Malaysian doctors, by and large, have stayed away from this service MO post because of the high workload and poor career prospects.

One has to understand that UMMC is not under the Ministry of Health. Doctors from the Health Ministry have to resign from the government service to join UMMC, a corporatized body.

Usually, when a doctor leaves the Health Ministry, he or she leaves for good. UMMC pays less than half than what can be made outside.

Let us now focus on the trainee specialists. These are the core service providers, the work-horse of the hospital.

They are there to learn and perform under guidance but they are usually pushed around by all the other groups.

Instead of guiding them, the academicians order them to run specialty clinics.

The academicians are either busy teaching medical students, doing research to get fast promotions, recruitting patients for private practice or ..... just uncontactable!

The degree of supervision here is worse than Health Ministry Specialty clinics.

Who are these specialist trainess anyway? A small number of them are under the SLAB program - Skim Latihan Akademik Bumiputra - a 'backdoor' way to admit Malay doctors into the specialist training programme.

While other junior doctors serve in remote areas of Malaysia, completing their compulsory 'three year service as MO' before being qualified to apply for specialist training, Bumiputra doctors gain entry into UMMC right after their housemanship.

Once the Bumiputra doctors are admitted into this programme, they
are directly employed by UMMC at a salary scale higher than a fifth-year Health Ministry Medical Officer.

All doctors undergo a four-year programme to become a specialist.

For doctors from the Health Ministry, the course is usually split into two-halves where they are retained in their respective hospitals for the first two years of training.

This is to ensure minimal disruption in service to the rakyat. These doctors understand the government's predicament and therefore,
work really hard, often sacrificing their academic priorities.

Their only 'hope' of studying is during their last two years at the UMMC.

However, they soon come to realise that they are the actual 'workers' in this centre where nobody wants to work.

The SLAB program trainees are too inexperienced to handle normal workload. They just laze around and enjoy all the privileges.

Ultimately, even the once hard-working colleagues from the Health Ministry become demotivated and join the fray.

To make matters worse, the trainee specialists were recently dealt with another blow - they have been disallowed from parking their cars at spaces reserved for "staff".

The reason given is that these trainee specialists from the Health Ministry are just 'students' and they are paid by the ministry of
Health. They don't 'belong' to the hospital.

The hospital and the Medical Faculty is not compelled to provide car park for these 'students' because the ministry of health 'does not pay for it'.

One has to pay M$1 per hour to park within the hospital compound while the faculty side has efficient guards on the prowl - they will clamp any car which has been found to be parked at inappropriate places.

The official fine for this offence is RM50. Many a times, doctors (some going home after being on duty for 36 hours) have found their car clamped and the guards will be nowhere to be found.

One has to go to the security office, situated about 2km from the car park, to pay the fine and beg for the car to be unclamped in time...

Now, which human being (please don't threaten us with our well meant Hippocrates Oath) will go through all this nonsense and yet provide
'efficient service with a smile'?"
Littlespeck.