PETALING JAYA: Efforts to overcome the severe shortage of government cardiothoracic surgeons have been hit with a severe blow, with several doctors pursuing the sponsored parallel pathway training programme abroad taking up jobs there instead.
The doctors, who received the Hadiah Latihan Persekutuan (HLP) scholarships, were supposed to return and serve the Health Ministry upon completion of their cardiothoracic specialist training.
Sources revealed that there were at least three such resignations in recent months, with some doctors undergoing training in the United Kingdom.
Sources said they tendered their resignations via email after finding jobs abroad, mainly in the UK and United States, thereby breaching the contractual obligations of their scholarships.
A ministry source said with only 13 cardiothoracic surgeons left in government service, the resignations have worsened the already critical shortage.
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Despite the historic amendments in Parliament to the Medical Act which paved the way for the recognition of the parallel pathway specialist training programme, the matter was not resolved, the source said.
“Is this how our doctors repay Malaysia, the ministry and the rakyat?” questioned the source.
The source lamented that there were times when the government could not even serve notices to the defaulters abroad “as we do not know their addresses”.
The source said although the ministry had gone to great lengths to recognise the parallel pathway programme, some doctors could not care less.
The parallel pathway is a national initiative that provides an alternative route for medical specialty recognition in Malaysia.
It is designed for doctors who pursue recognised overseas training programmes outside the mainstream local postgraduate systems.
The amendment to the Medical Act recognised the parallel pathway as a specialist training programme, in addition to the Masters programme conducted by universities.
Under HLP, the bond for training conducted both in Malaysia and overseas for a period of over 48 months is six years of service with the penalty amount set at RM700,000.
For training done overseas for a minimum of 36 months, the bond is four years of service and RM600,000 penalty.
For those trained locally, the bond period is four years of service with a RM500,000 penalty.
However, sources said doctors who quit would rather pay the penalty in installments which is said to be just a several hundred ringgit a month.
The Star reported last year that the shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons in the country left some 1,500 heart and lung disease patients in government hospitals in dire straits.
At the time, Malaysian graduates sent by the government to study cardiothoracic surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (RCSEd) were unable to practise in Malaysia as their qualifications were not accepted by the Malaysian Medical Council, barring them from the National Specialist Register (NSR).
This set the motion for the eventual amendment to the Medical Act last year.
