Healing a sickly system

IT is both frustrating and saddening to see our public health service in a dire state in spite of the tremendous sacrifices put into it by our medical professionals and allied staff.

In a tweet on July 17, 2019, Health Ministry director-general Tan Sri Noor Hisham Abdullah (pic) admitted that “We are currently underfunded, understaffed, underpaid, overworked, overstretched and with facilities overcrowded with patients.”

Can we give him a break before he goes on mandatory retirement in April this year?

The problems faced by our Health Ministry range from placement for newly-graduated medical professionals, contract of service for those who have completed their internship, lack of specialists and inadequate or poor state of medical/health facilities and equipment.

In September 2021, Khairy Jamaluddin, then the Health minister, told the Dewan Rakyat that the severe shortage of medical specialists in the public healthcare system is to blame for the long queues of patients in hospitals.

Malaysia has about 13,000 specialists, of whom 6,183 are in the public sector, he said. This is far short of the government’s target of having 28,000 specialists by 2030, he admitted.

Currently, graduates of our local medical specialists (master’s) programme undergo a six-month gazettement process before being recognised as a specialist. For those who obtained their specialist qualifications from the United Kingdom, Scotland and Ireland, the gazettement process is 18 months.

Is it not possible to shorten the gazettement process for those who obtained their specialist qualifications abroad? After all, they would have served more than five years in their specialty as a senior medical officer and would have adequate experience, training and exposure.

Another problem is that some heads of departments and service heads take ages to sign off their graduate specialists’ log books, a prerequisite to apply for gazettement. This is definitely not in line with the Hippocratic Oath, which mandates that supervisors treat their juniors as their “offspring” and to accord them due respect, dignity and fairness.

The attitude and behaviour of these departmental and service heads are also not in sync with the fundamental and basic tenets of Malaysia Madani, which calls upon us to be mindful, empathic, fair, just, kind, considerate and humane.

As a human resource specialist, it is my professional view that the Health Ministry’s Human Resource (HR) Division has failed miserably in carrying out its manpower planning function.

Manpower planning must take into account projections on staff requirements for new and future facilities as well as attrition statistics, including deaths, retirement, resignations, transfers and promotions.

To my mind, the reason for this failure can be attributed to the fact that those who are heading the HR functions of ministries, departments and even the Public Service Department (PSD) are rarely people who have any HR credentials or competency. The vast majority, if not all, are from the Administrative and Diplomatic services with their diverse qualifications.

I fervently hope and pray that the powers that be would seriously look into the matters raised here and institute proactive and corrective actions to stop the further deterioration of our public health service, which is currently ill in spite of its extremely commendable and herculean performance in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic.

PSD and the Finance Ministry must give the Health Ministry their full support to overcome the problems in healthcare delivery services as they directly affect the rakyat at large.

ROSLAN SHARIF

Bangi, Selangor