PETALING JAYA: The Health Ministry has postponed the placement selection for 2,245 permanent medical officer (MO) candidates scheduled for Monday (March 17) due to serious technical disruptions caused by extraordinary access to the ePlacement system.
In a statement Monday, the ministry said the ePlacement system is a platform for placing MOs in locations with vacancies based on a "first come, first served" basis.
"According to network traffic logs on Feb 27, many users accessed the server using various devices, including inappropriate methods.
"A comprehensive access report on the day of the incident showed over 19 million 'hits', rendering the system database inaccessible.
"This was a major contributing factor to the postponement of the placement selection," the Health Ministry said in its statement..
It added that due to the technical disruptions, application statistics also indicated an excess of approved placements compared to the original quota, and less than 1% of vacancies in Sabah and Sarawak were filled.
This resulted in the data obtained being unusable.
The ministry said it had since made improvements to the system but was still unable to offer a fair placement selection process.
"The new application dates previously communicated via email to candidates — March 25, 26 and 27 — are cancelled and postponed to a new date to be announced later," it said.
The statement said that after considering various input, the Health Ministry's leadership has decided that the existing selection system (which uses the "first-come, first-served" method) will be replaced with a more transparent, fair system based on merit and balancing supply and demand.
It added that 50% of current vacancies for MOs are in Sabah and Sarawak.
The Health Ministry will also engage with involved MOs to provide a more detailed explanation on issues affecting the ePlacement system.
"The Health Minsitry is expected to reopen applications within six to eight weeks to finalise and test the sustainability of the new system before implementation," the statement read.
It added that the ministry will continue to provide new information and updates regarding the ePlacement 2.0 system, including guidelines and vacancy data as necessary.
The ministry also urges all MOs to use this system ethically and responsibly to avoid any disruptions that could compromise the transparency of the selection process.
"The Health Ministry remains attentive to the concerns of its personnel regarding this issue and is committed to ensuring the successful implementation of the MO placement process," the statement added.
