KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 23 — Seri Manjung Hospital is set to receive extra medical officers (MOs), Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad announced recently after a doctor complained of dire staff shortages.
In a post on X last Saturday, Dzulkefly acknowledged that the Ministry of Health (MOH) is “understaffed” and that some staff, more than others, are overburdened and overworked.
“Regarding the situation at Seri Manjung Hospital, we will strive to allocate more MOs to critical departments. This effort will be carried out in collaboration with the BSM (Human Resources Division) to ensure sufficient manpower. Arguably this is an uphill task,” said Dzulkefly.
“Be that as it may, there is an annual increase in MO allocation to all MOH facilities, and a new batch of MOs was just assigned last week.
“Therefore, Seri Manjung Hospital will soon receive additional medical staff. I am also aware that this issue is not confined to Seri Manjung Hospital, but is a nationwide problem. The MOH will make every effort to address this pressing concern.”
Dzulkefly was responding to nephrologist Dr Rafidah Abdullah, who refuted Perak state health director Dr Feisul Idzwan Mustapha’s recent statement that the medical department at Seri Manjung Hospital, a district hospital, is not overworked or understaffed.
Dr Feisul had maintained that medical officers in Seri Manjung Hospital’s medical department do four to five active on-calls and two to three passive calls a month, and that each medical officer only sees three to four patients at any one time.
A person commenting on Dzulkefly’s Facebook post said that nearly 80 per cent of the floating MO batch from Seri Manjung Hospital are due for transfers to Sabah, with the reporting date scheduled for January 20 next year.
“This decision was only informed at 4pm last Friday,” said the person last Saturday.
“There’s only less than a month to settle placements, rental accommodation, and flight tickets etc. I hope YB will be able to absorb those of us who made appeals to remain at Seri Manjung Hospital. HSM also needs MOs. We are dying here.”
A Seri Manjung Hospital medical officer – who had first written a letter to CodeBlue titled “I’m Sorry We Couldn’t Save Your Loved Ones” – was critical of the Perak state health department’s response to their letter.
“We were hoping for a positive response from our ‘leader’ but instead, we were accused of faking the number of patients under our care in a day. We were compared to tertiary hospitals with house officers and medical officers rotating in subspecialties,” the doctor wrote to CodeBlue before Dzulkefly’s announcement on additional staff for Seri Manjung Hospital.
“We were sold to the public that our on-call duties are little. It is unfair to belittle us when we are striving to be better for the community. With the opening of a new building, introduction of daycare services and welcoming of subspecialties, our responsibilities grow.
“No doubt the lack of manpower has jeopardised the health of many lives including, the health care staff. There are instances where the sick are taking care of the sick in the ward. We have seen family members feeding, bathing and assisting other patients who are complete strangers to them.
“If our community is united as one regardless of race and religious belief, why are the ministers against us? This sparks the fire and will in me to do better for them.
“The ideal situation as portrayed by JKN Perak of doctor-patient ratio of 1:4 at Hospital Seri Manjung definitely surpasses the WHO (World Health Organization) recommendation and probably any health care facilities in the world.”
