KUALA LUMPUR, August 14 — The Sarawak state health department has come under fire for its response to a medical officer, whose husband (another government doctor) was denied leave to care for their infant with chickenpox.
In a recent Instagram post, the female medical officer said that since she had on-call duties in her hospital soon, her husband, whose public health clinic had more doctors than her department, decided to take leave to take care of their eight-month-old baby.
Although he was given five-days leave to care for their child under quarantine, his clinic allegedly insisted that he work nonetheless, despite their inability to find a sitter for their baby with an active chickenpox infection. As such, he resorted to bringing their baby to work.
“Is a health care worker an asset or a slave?” the woman doctor wrote on Instagram.
“Maybe a doctor’s child is immune to infectious diseases and can take care of himself at 8 months old. Doctors are not human. They are not allowed to be sick and their kids are not allowed to be sick as well,” she added, calling it “modern slavery in KKM”.
In a statement issued yesterday, the Sarawak state health department (JKN) claimed that five-day leave to take care of a child under quarantine could be taken “in turns” between working parents or other adult members of the same household.
Referring to the complaint, JKN Sarawak said the male medical officer (father) was given three days’ leave from August 9 to 11, as his supervisor of the Klinik Kesihatan, which sees 800 to 1,000 patients a day, said the public health clinic would face a “critical” shortage of medical officers on August 12.
This was due to the involvement of doctors in activities outside the Klinik Kesihatan, like clinic and emergency services for the SUKMA Games in Sarawak and health programmes in schools, among others. The mobilisation of medical officers from other public health clinics had been planned to start from August 13.
“The supervisor had asked the medical officer in question to take turns [for leave] with his wife to prevent any disruption to clinic services. The medical officer (mother) in question works in the Transfusion Unit (Blood Bank); the hospital’s on-call schedule showed that the female medical officer was not scheduled for on-call at the hospital on August 12, 2024,” said JKN Sarawak.
“The difficulties faced by the medical officer couple in question would certainly have been avoided if there were fresh discussions with the supervisor for the appropriate consideration.
“Two-way communication between staff in a health care facility is very important to ensure continuity of quality health care services for the people.”
The Sarawak state health director is Dr Veronica Lugah; her name was not on the August 13 press statement that was merely signed off by JKN Sarawak in general.
JKN Sarawak’s Facebook post of its statement was heavily condemned by Malaysians, with the post receiving more than 1,100 shares and over 800 comments before the state health department limited comments.
Some pointed out that government circulars and the human resource system do not allow for staff to “take turns” for quarantine leave.
One sarcastically asked if JKN Sarawak would issue another statement on a chickenpox outbreak soon, since the male doctor was forced to bring his child to work in the Klinik Kesihatan that sees 800 to 1,000 patients daily. JKN Sarawak did not name the public health clinic in question.
Another questioned if “taking turns” for quarantine leave would enable the parents to spread infectious disease.
A person commented: “What’s with the hostility towards the mother? You are short of manpower, and it’s your job to find solutions to it. There’s no use in being defensive and start attacking the mother in public like this. Statements like this coming from an official page is a new low for KKM.”
Someone else told the Facebook page admin to understand that they are dealing with doctors.
“This is not an acceptable statement for JKNS to issue at all. Instead of spinning around the story to programs and nonsense, why don’t just come out directly and say that there is an issue of LACK OF STAFF that needs to be addressed URGENTLY? When the one that is supposed to handle the issue is not taking accountability for it, then we are really in deep trouble. This is just coming up with excuses and trying to share the blame.”
Just last week, another department under the Ministry of Health (MOH) – the Selangor state health department – came under fire for justifying the restriction of maternity leave from 90 to 60 days for medical officers in all Klinik Kesihatan under the Hulu Langat district health office (PKD), due to staff shortages.
Like JKN Sarawak, JKN Selangor is also headed by a woman – Dr Ummi Kalthom Shamsudin.
Amid public furore, Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad subsequently reversed the decision and reinstated 90-day maternity leave.
