Housemen to be placed at other hospitals

PETALING JAYA: The placement of medical graduates for housemanship has been expanded to beyond just state hospitals in a move by the Health Ministry to meet manpower needs.

“This offer of placement was implemented from May 13 involving 792 candidates,” said the ministry.

“We understand the challenges faced by health practitioners nationwide in dealing with the increase in their workload. A number of short-term and long-term solutions will be implemented to overcome this problem,” it said in a statement yesterday.

The Star reported early this month that the number of housemen at the ministry had declined by 50% since 2019, following a drop in medical graduates.

There were 6,134 housemen in 2019 but this went down to 3,271 last year.

Yesterday, the ministry said earlier this year, it was decided that the placement of housemen was opened to state hospitals only due to a decrease in such vacancies.

“As of April, the Health Ministry has implemented two series of placements involving 701 people in the first intake and 803 in the second intake.

“This decision was made in view of the fact that the percentage of filling up housemen vacancies has improved.”

As for the placement of housemen in other hospitals, the ministry said that this would be considered from time to time, depending on the number of candidates received from the Public Services Department and other factors.

It added that 747 medical officers who had graduated in May had been placed in all states to ease the shortage.