PONTIAN: Building new hospitals and facilities is not the main challenge facing the Health Ministry, as the greater issue lies in ensuring sufficient manpower to run them effectively, says its minister.
Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said the country is facing a critical shortage of medical graduates to meet the needs of the national healthcare system.
“The greater challenge is ensuring that newly built facilities can operate effectively with sufficient staffing – including medical officers, nurses, specialists and support staff.
“For this year’s first intake of house officers, we were only able to fill 10% of the national vacancy slots,” he said in his speech at the groundbreaking ceremony for the additional building of Pontian Hospital at Dataran Pontian here on Sunday (Feb 15).
Dzulkefly said that the shortfall was not due to overly strict selection criteria by the ministry, but rather a limited supply of available medical graduates.
He said bold measures are needed to increase the production of medical graduates and to make the medical profession attractive again to young people.
“The welfare of healthcare workers must also be improved to show that a career in medicine offers a more secure and rewarding future,” he said.
Dzulkefly stressed the need to address the migration of doctors to private healthcare facilities and overseas through more comprehensive and firm measures.
He called for a whole-of-government approach to resolve the manpower issue, noting that it cannot be tackled by the Health Ministry alone.
“We need support beyond the ministry in mobilising ideas and resources to resolve this problem comprehensively and effectively,” he said.
Despite the manpower concerns, Dr Dzulkefly said the Pontian Hospital project marked an important milestone for healthcare services in the district.
Hospital Pontian, which has served nearly 178,000 residents since 1913, currently operates as a district hospital without specialist services and records a bed occupancy rate of 55%.
With the construction of the new 10-storey additional block, the hospital will be upgraded to a minor specialist hospital.
The project will add 110 beds, bringing the total capacity to 230 beds, and will include modern critical facilities such as an intensive care unit (ICU), operating theatres, as well as CT scan and MRI services.
Dzulkefly said the upgrade would allow Pontian residents to receive specialist treatment closer to home while helping to ease congestion at major hospitals in Johor Baru.
Patients requiring specialist treatment are currently referred to Sultanah Aminah Hospital and Sultan Ismail Hospital in Johor Baru.
