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23 June 2005
Datuk Dr Ismail Marican,
Malaysian Medical Council(MMC).
Ibupejabat Kementerian Kesihatan Malaysia,
Aras 2, Blok E1, Parcel E,
Pusat Pentadbiran Kerajaan Persekutuan,
62590 Putrajaya.
- BY HAND
Yang Berbahagia Datuk,
Restoration Of MMC’s Recognition Of
Crimea Medical State University(Ukraine) In The Interests Of Fairplay,
Equal Opportunity And Justice For All
On behalf of all Malaysian parents and
students, we wish to seek from MMC the restoration of recognition of
Crimea Medical State University(Ukraine) or CSMU’s medical degrees. We
protest at MMC’s sudden de-recognition of its medical degrees as not
in the interests of fairplay, equal opportunity and justice for all.
The Medical Act 1971 stipulates that
only graduates from recognized universities can be registered to
practice in the country. At the moment, about 450 medical universities
and colleges in more than 30 countries are recognized by the Malaysian
Medical Council. These include 10 universities offering the medical
degree locally – 6 in the public sector and 4 in the private sector.
Graduates from unscheduled universities
have to sit for and pass a qualifying examination held concurrently
with the final year medical examinations of Universiti Kebangsaan
Malaysia, Universiti Malaya or Universiti Sains Malaysia under Section
12 (1) (aa) of the Medical Act before they can be registered to
practice in this country. These graduates are allowed three attempts
at the qualifying examination.
According to your Ministry in 2003, 124
candidates sat for the examination – 37 at USM, 42 at UM and 45 UKM –
and the pass rates were 32% at USM, 52% at UM and 18% at UKM. This
gives an overall pass rate of only 34% (42 out of the 124 candidates).
The majority of candidates were from India (66), Indonesia (30) and
China (11). Clearly the passing rate from the qualifying examination
is low.
Medicine has been the wish of parents
and ambition of many talented students. Due to the difficulty in
obtaining places in local universities due to intense competition and
quota restrictions, many of these students have no choice but to go
overseas despite the high costs involved. CSMU offers the cheapest
price of all foreign medical universities at RM 100,000 for the entire
course compared to RM 400,000 in Australia, RM 630,000 in England and
RM 700,000 in United States.
Following recognition by MMC in 2001,
CSMU became the sole destination of choice from poorer families due to
the low cost involved. The sudden withdrawal of recognition for the
2006 intake has deeply distressed Malaysian parents who view such
actions as a breach of trust. Bearing in mind that 22% of CSMU are
Chinese, 22% Malays and the remainder Indian this is a truly Malaysian
problem and not particular to any community.
Further, these doctors trained at
private expense provide a valuable service in overcoming the current
shortage of doctors in Malaysian hospitals. The Malaysian government
spends annually RM 40 million to employ 700 foreign doctors in
government hospitals. No one can understand why these young Malaysians
are not encouraged to overcome this shortage when the government need
not spend a single cent and help to save RM 40 million annually to the
government.
Deputy Health Minister Datuk Dr Abdul
Latif Ahmad had said that amongst the reasons for the de-recognition
of CSMU’s degrees include the sudden rise in the number of Malaysian
students had increased from a mere 53 to 1,366 in May this year,
causing concern to the MMC. He claimed that this caused the desired
lecturer-to-student ratio of 1:4 to deteriorate to 1:8.
The desired lecturer-to-student ratio of
1:4 contradicts the statement by Higher Education Minister Shafie Apdal
in the New Straits Times on 3rd June 2004 that the MMC had
agreed to expand the lecturer and student ratio from 1:4 to 1:6 during
clinical years. Further, is this lecturer-to-student ratio of 1:4
complied with by Malaysian universities’ medical faculties or other
medical faculties overseas?
In June last year,
Council of Medical Deans chairman Professor Dr Zabidi Azhar Hussin
said some faculties had vastly exceeded their capacity, with a 1:8
medical lecturer-student ratio when 1:6 was the accepted ceiling.
The failure of MMC to explain this discrepancy has only caused
aggrieved students and the community at large to suspect that they
were unfairly and harshly treated.
Another example of declining standards
cited by the Deputy Health Minister was that Arts-stream students who
had failed their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia were among those accepted by
CSMU. However CSMU only accepted qualified students as determined by
the Higher Education Ministry in the form of “no-objection letters”.
The question then is how these students
who allegedly failed their SPM could obtain “no-objection letters”
from the Higher Education Ministry to pursue the medical course
despite their lack of qualifications. It is unfair and unjust to
punish 1,366 Malaysian medical students in CSMU because of
irresponsibility, negligence or abuse of power of the Higher Education
Ministry.
For this reason, the violent and
extremist rantings of Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department
Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri bin Abdul Aziz against DAP MP for Ipoh Barat
M. Kulasegaran that he is a bloody racist for highlighting this issue
can be dismissed as a pathetic attempt to distract attention from the
government’s failure to match the superior logic and factual basis of
our argument to restore recognition of CSMU’s medical degrees.
No Malaysian would ever object to
actions taken by the MMC to maintain standards particularly on medical
courses as human lives are at stake. But when standards are manifestly
used as a guise to cover-up failings and inadequacies, Malaysians can
not be blamed if they see this as a cloak of injustice.
The MMC’s refusal to be accountable to
the affected students, be transparent about the standards required or
the events leading to de-recognition of the medical degrees has only
given rise to fears that there were other factors that unfairly
discriminated the affected students. Accordingly we hope that the MMC
can restore recognition of CSMU’s medical degrees. Insofar as the
unhappiness of MMC remains a complete mystery to CSMU, a grace period
should be provided to CSMU to fulfill and perform up to the highest
standards required.
Yours faithfully,
LIM GUAN ENG
DAP SECRETARY-GENERAL |
http://dapmalaysia.org