KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 — Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) has refuted Sungai Buloh Hospital’s allegation that university hospitals had delayed sending it salary-related documents for junior doctors transferred there.
The public university hospital said according to its records, all documents related to salary payment were emailed to house officers last April 2, to be forwarded to Sungai Buloh Hospital, a Ministry of Health (MOH) facility.
Original copies of the documents were sent through registered post last April 10 to Sungai Buloh Hospital’s human resources division.
“UMMC is not one of the university hospitals that was late in forwarding documents related to salary payments for house officers in May 2020 as alleged by this media,” UMMC director Dr Tunku Kamarul Zaman said in a statement late yesterday to CodeBlue.
CodeBlue reported Sungai Buloh Hospital — Malaysia’s main Covid-19 treatment centre — as saying in a statement that it paid yesterday the outstanding April and May wages for 31 contract medical officers transferred from university hospitals between March 20 and April 3, after CodeBlue highlighted the plight of the junior doctors from UMMC, Hospital UKM (HUKM), and Hospital USM (HUSM).
The MOH hospital claimed that it only received documents related to salary payments from these public university hospitals — which are under the Ministry of Higher Education — after the last salary payment date this month.
Dr Tunku Kamarul also clarified yesterday that salary management for medical officers who had completed their housemanship at UMMC and were subsequently posted to MOH hospitals, such as Sungai Buloh Hospital, was not under UMMC’s jurisdiction.
“Therefore, the issue of late salary payments does not involve UMMC at all.”
