KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 1 — Doctors in public service have expressed outrage over a revelation that increasing their on-call allowance would cost the government just RM80 million a year.
Contract doctors’ group Hartal Doktor Kontrak (HDK) compared the government’s refusal to raise doctors’ on-call claims to Subang MP Wong Chen’s call last May for higher remuneration for MPs to employ staff and officers, not just to raise their families.
“Let these pictures tell a story,” HDK said in a Facebook post that attached screenshots of Wong’s remarks and a CodeBlue report on the annual RM80 million estimated cost of increasing medical officers’ on-call allowance by RM55 to RM65.
People commenting on HDK’s post highlighted the various remunerations that MPs are entitled to, including monthly salary (RM16,000), fuel allowance (RM1,500), entertainment allowance (RM2,500), and driver’s allowance (RM1,500), as reported by Harian Metro in January 2024.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a statement last March that the total income of an MP could reach RM40,000 per month, including a fixed allowance of RM25,700.
A doctor commenting on HDK’s post also highlighted various MPs and former ministers who are entitled to two pensions amounting to between RM28,000 and RM41,000 a month, as reported by Malaysiakini.
CodeBlue reported a Human Resource Division (BSM) official from the Ministry of Health (MOH) as telling the Health parliament special select committee last February that raising the on-call allowance by RM55 and RM65 for all doctors performing on-call duties was estimated to cost between RM75 million and RM80 million a year.
Hence, the government limited the on-call claims increase to the now-axed Waktu Bekerja Berlainan (WBB) pilot project to reduce financial implications to RM20 million or RM21 million annually.
Currently, medical officers and specialists receive ETAP allowance of RM220 and RM250 respectively per on-call shift on weekends. WBB, a shift system pilot cancelled by the Cabinet in January, had sought to increase this to RM275 and RM315 respectively for participating doctors in select hospital units or departments.
The RM220 allowance is equivalent to just RM9.16 per hour for a 24-hour on-call shift, which the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has characterised as being lower even than the pay for fast food workers.
Another person compared the RM80 million on-call allowance raise to the RM17 billion Penang LRT project.
He pointed out that the transportation project would cost 794,000 Penang island residents about RM21,400 per person, compared to just RM2.42 per person across Malaysia’s 33-million population for the RM80 million on-call claims increase.
“The disparity is striking. On one hand, each Penang resident is effectively tied to a RM21,000 share of a single transport project. On the other, every Malaysian could help keep the country’s medical professionals fairly paid for the price of loose change,” he wrote on Facebook.
Another Malaysian compared the RM80 million on-call allowance raise to the RM4 billion Kota Madani project.
“If we ratio the construction cost of Kota Madani, the capital costs of this township can be used to raise doctors’ on-call allowance for 50 years,” he wrote on Facebook.
“For God’s sake, this on-call allowance issue is long overdue, longer than the Kota Madani proposal. Hence it should be prioritised first!”
Federal Territories Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa, who was previously health minister, claimed last June that the housing project does not involve public funds as it is funded by the developer, Putrajaya Holdings, under a build-lease-maintain-transfer (BLMT) model.
A specialist sarcastically said the on-call system wasn’t very important because doctors who quit the health service could be replaced with RXZ members and motorsports icons.
Last month, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who is also the finance minister, provided an additional RM200,000 allocation for RXZ Members 7.0 2025, totalling RM300,000 in funding from the federal government for the motorsports programme.
“When they’re exhausted and burnt out, my MOs (medical officers) start looking for places of healing while typing their resignation letters,” the specialist wrote on Facebook.
Yet another doctor questioned if saving RM80 million was worth the risk of losing more doctors from the government health service amid rising patient numbers and long waiting times for treatment.
“This isn’t about politics. Don’t accuse us of trying to make the government look bad. We health care workers have been fighting for this issue across multiple administrations,” he wrote on Facebook.
“We beg and hope for the authorities to resolve this problem immediately. Don’t be penny-wise, pound-foolish.”
On social media, other Malaysians commenting on the missing RM80 million on-call allowance increase highlighted deadly protests in Indonesia that were spurred by public anger over lawmakers’ perks.
Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto has pledged to revoke lawmakers’ perks, including a controversial US$3,000 monthly housing allowance that is nearly 10 times the Jakarta minimum wage.
