While tabling the 2017 Budget in the Parliament two days ago, the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has announced that from December, approximately 2,600 graduates who cannot find housemanship placement can now work at a hospital on a contract basis.
Yesterday, the Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S Subramaniam welcomed the scheme in a press conference.
The Minister said that doctors would be given a four year contract while dentists and pharmacist a three year contract under the new scheme announced in Budget 2017.
He said the contract will be for 4 years for medical graduates and 3 years for dentistry and pharmacy graduates although the housemanship training for medical graduates is 2 years and for dentistry and pharmacy is only 1 year.
However, Subramaniam has not addressed or answered a most basic and important question that new medical graduates and their parents want to know—what happens after the contract ends? Can they really find jobs in the private sector?
Subramaniam said that once their contract ends, the doctors can find jobs in the private sector. But how many of them can be absorbed into the private sector when what most private hospitals require are specialist doctors with sufficient experience and not new medical officers.
The issue of oversupply of doctors has been raised several years ago by Malaysia Medical Association and Malaysian Medical Council. Former Health Minister Datuk Chua Soi Lek has also voiced his concern about the problem.
I have also raised the issue inside and outside the Parliament but the government’s response to the issue which should be regarded as a crisis has been slow and disappointing with no effective plans to address the issue. Worse, there were even initial denials that there would be oversupply of doctors.
With the introduction of the contract scheme, the Health Minister should tell the public the clear and honest picture about doctors becoming jobless, rather than giving the impression that jobs are still many for them in the private sector.
Let’s hope the day will not come when the government will have to advise jobless doctors to become Uber drivers!
The government has to take full responsibility for the oversupply of doctors as it has shown to lack the political will and crisis consciousness to surmount the problem despite being having been warned for so long.