Health Ministry pays out RM203.6mil in special assistance to over 290,000 frontliners

PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry has paid out a total of RM203.6mil to frontliners in the Health Ministry under the Budget 2022 special financial assistance for civil servants and frontliners, says Khairy Jamaluddin.

The Health Minister said this special assistance was paid out on Jan 25.

"The number of Health Ministry employees that have received the special assistance were 290,892 people that resulted in financial implications of RM203.6mil," he said when replying to a question raised by Datuk Dr Hasan Bahrom (PH - Tampin) in Dewan Rakyat on Wednesday (March 2).

Dr Hasan had asked about the status of the bonus paid to frontliners in the Health Ministry.

The government had previously announced the special financial assistance of RM700 to 1.3 million civil servants Grade 56 and below including frontliners in the Health Ministry.

Khairy said the government provided various benefits, financial and non-financial in nature, to the frontliners who were involved directly in dealing with the spread of Covid-19.

He said under the Covid-19 special allowance given to frontliners such as doctors, nurses, and ambulance drivers was raised from RM400 to RM600 a month from April 2020.

As of Dec 31, 2021, Khairy said a total of RM1.1bil had been paid to the frontliners under the Covid-19 special allowance.

Those eligible for the special allowance, he said include among others doctors and healthcare personnel that had been instructed to perform tasks in the Covid-19 pandemic management.

He said this also included healthcare personnel who had been vaccinated, adding that those who were not eligible to be vaccinated due to medical reasons would still be eligible to receive the allowance.

"This will also include doctors and healthcare personnel that are eligible to receive the special allowance based on their working days of either RM600 for more than 15 working days, and RM300 for less than 15 working days in the Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre or the Rapid Response task force," he said.

He added that payments were made based on claim forms submitted by the officers to the respective Pusat Tanggungjawab (PTJ).

Khairy also pointed out that this year there would be 3,586 permanent vacancies to be filled by contract doctors.