KUALA LUMPUR, March 28 – Universiti Putra Malaysia’s teaching hospital, HPUPM, is the latest institution to be accused of not compensating staff doctors for on-call work.
A doctor working at HPUPM has alleged that Master’s trainees are not being compensated for their on-call work. “If a Master’s trainee does on-call, you are not to be paid on-call claims,” the doctor, who requested anonymity, told CodeBlue. “We didn’t know about this. Nobody briefed us about this during orientation.”
The doctor, who is a Master’s student working at HPUPM, said only Master’s trainees are affected by the lack of payment for on-call duties. “Service medical officers get their on-call allowances.”
The frequency of on-call duties varies based on the department, with the number of shifts ranging from two to six per month. “Your on-call shift typically starts at 8am and ends the next day at 8am. During that time, the on-call person is responsible for attending to all the active cases and releasing referrals from the emergency department,” the doctor explained.
“I know RM200 is nothing for a specialist, but it is a lot for a medical officer who’s doing Master’s training. RM200 means you can pay for your petrol travelling from A to B, you can pay your phone bill – there’s a lot you can do with that RM200,” the doctor said.
The doctor also highlighted that many trainees come from outside of Kuala Lumpur and need to rent accommodation, adding to their living expenses. “I mean, financially, it affects us. The other thing is, emotionally you’re disturbed because you don’t enjoy what you do.”
The reason cited for the lack of on-call pay for Master’s students at HPUPM is that the hospital is relatively new, the doctor said. While HPUPM began operations in 2019, it was only officially launched and renamed Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah UPM Hospital (HSAAS) last month.
“When we first discovered that we were not being paid for on-call duties, we were like, ‘Okay, never mind. It’s a new university. Let’s see how things go.’ But it has been a year now, and nothing has changed,” the doctor said.
The doctor, who is on a Hadiah Latihan Persekutuan (HLP) scholarship, said the issue was previously raised in departmental meetings and department heads assured that the matter would be brought to the attention of higher authorities.
“Last semester, the former Director of the hospital created a WhatsApp group and added all Master’s trainees to it. Many of us voiced our concerns about the issue, not just from my department, but also from other departments like medical.
“The word that the ex-Director gave us was, ‘InshaAllah (God willing), I will try my level best, I akan bawa benda ini bicara ke pihak atasan.’ But soon after he resigned and left the WhatsApp group without any follow-up. The WhatsApp group mati macam tu.
“When the new Director took over, when people started voicing out about this, he shut down the entire WhatsApp group,” explained the doctor. In addition to not getting paid on-call allowances, staff members are allegedly not provided food during their on-call duties.
The doctor said there has been speculation that the hospital has agreed to provide on-call allowances, but it remains uncertain which batches will be eligible for payment.
Despite making multiple attempts to reach out to the top management of HPUPM, CodeBlue was unable to obtain any comments on these allegations.
This comes just weeks after similar accusations of “wage theft” were made against Universiti Malaya Medical Center (UMMC), raising concerns about the prevalence of labour violations in health care facilities under the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE).
While HPUPM is accused of not compensating Master’s students for on-call work, UMMC was accused of failing to provide compensation for passive on-call hours to staff doctors.
UMMC has responded to the allegations by stating that only individuals who are included in the authorised on-call schedule are eligible for on-call allowances.
