It has almost been a year since Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim delivered his 2025 Budget speech when he pledged a raise in medical and dental officers’ on-call allowance. This is starting to seem like another unfulfilled promise.
The health minister has since been huffing and puffing regarding the raise in on-call allowance. Calls for help on social media, pressure from the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA), and even mass resignations of medical personnel have still not woken up the Ministry of Health (MOH).
There seemed to be some positive murmurs with the induction of the new Health director-general (DG) in May 2025. Although it may be early days, problems with regards to placement, contracts, exorbitant working hours, and resignations still loom.
Quick interventions and decisions are the hallmark of an emergency department, but the former head of department of the busiest emergency department in the country seems to be dragging his feet in Putrajaya — very unlike someone who headed the Emergency Department of Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) for many years.
Maybe the DG needs to draw inspiration from the director of his previous hospital. Although there are also problems in HKL, the progress and improvement in infrastructure, staff welfare, restructuring and extra-curricular activities are impressive.
The “all about action” hospital director is raising eyebrows nationwide. This obviously would come with unhappy administrators who have failed to bring about any growth in their respective centres for years.
Maybe Prof Dr Harikrishna K.R. Nair’s story should be made an example and true practising clinicians should helm the post of hospital director instead of air-conditioned room administrators.
The MOH should stop patch-work on leaking pipes. The patch will only last a while before it gives way again. Knee-jerk solutions don’t solve problems.
A radical overhaul and systemic changes are necessary when the whole pipe is rusted. Otherwise, we will continue to go in circles and the same issues will keep cropping up.
The country did not collapse when politicians weren’t appointed, but it will certainly collapse when health care is paralysed. Do we want to wait for that day to come and only then try to do something about it? That would be a typical case of “nasi sudah menjadi bubur”.
When conditions are poor, we cannot blame our top achievers for exploring greener pastures. Presently, we have Singapore openly poaching our doctors.
Soon, other countries might do the same because other countries are progressing while we’re struggling. The eventual victims will be citizens who can’t afford quality sub-specialised health care in the private sector or overseas.
I certainly hope that the dim light at the end of the tunnel that we saw in May is not an oncoming train!
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
