KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 24 — Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad has revealed that on-call allowance (ETAP) for medical and dental officers, including specialists, currently costs the Ministry of Health (MOH) about RM288 million annually.
In a written Dewan Negara reply on September 10, Dzulkefly told Senator Dr RA Lingeshwaran that a 50 per cent ETAP raise for doctors and dentists would increase the cost of on-call allowance to the government by RM144 million to RM432 million per year.
“At this time, the MOH is finalising a proposal for an ETAP increase that will be tabled to the Cabinet in a Cabinet memorandum (MJM),” said Dzulkefly.
“The MJM covers a proposed new ETAP rate, evaluations of financial implications of an ETAP increase, and new guidelines to strengthen the implementation of on-call duties to be more organised, balanced, and transparent for medical and dental officers in the MOH.”
MOH is currently conducting a comprehensive study to “review working hours and strengthen on-call duties” for medical and dental officers through the Special Action Committee on Strengthening Health Service Delivery, chaired by former Health director-general Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman.
“The Ministry of Health is concerned about the welfare and working hours of medical officers at MOH health facilities, especially in hospitals,” said Dzulkefly.
“From time to time, MOH has closely examined the operational needs and critical responsibilities carried out by medical officers who are directly involved in saving patients’ lives from bedside to bedside, regardless of time, which demands extraordinary levels of physical, mental, and emotional preparedness.”
Dzulkefly also said in his written parliamentary reply that the MOH spent RM860.1 million from 2022 to 2024 in ETAP payments to medical and dental officers serving in MOH health care facilities nationwide.
The health minister did not specify the new ETAP rate that the MOH was proposing to the Cabinet; he only provided the estimated cost of a 50 per cent increase because Dr Lingeshwaran specifically asked about it.
Neither did Dzulkefly specify the “new guidelines” for on-call duties.
On September 5, prior to his September 10 Dewan Negara reply, the health minister said he would request Cabinet approval for an ETAP increase for doctors and dentists in Budget 2026 that is scheduled for tabling in Parliament on October 10.
The government previously allocated an on-call allowance increase of RM55 to RM65 for medical/dental officers and specialists in Budget 2025.
But this was never implemented because the ETAP hike was tied to the Waktu Bekerja Berlainan (WBB) shift system pilot project that was killed by the Cabinet in January.
In February, MOH’s Human Resources Division (BSM) division secretary Noor Azman Abdul Rahman told the Health parliamentary special select committee (PSSC) that giving the ETAP raise to all medical officers involved would cost an additional RM75 million to RM80 million annually.
An ETAP raise of RM55 per weekend shift for active calls translates to a mere 25 per cent increase of the current RM220 rate for medical officers. A raise of RM65 per weekend shift is equivalent to a 26 per cent increase of the current RM250 rate for specialists.
On the other hand, a 50 per cent raise of doctors’ on-call allowance means an additional RM110 per shift for weekend calls for medical officers, as well as an extra RM125 per shift for specialists.
ETAP was last revised more than a decade ago in 2012.
In August last year, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) proposed for medical officers’ weekend on-call rates to be increased to RM25 per hour from the current RM9.16 hourly rate, or RM600 per shift. A 50 per cent raise is equivalent to RM330 per shift or RM13.75 per hour.
The MOH had initially sought to generate cost savings with the unpopular WBB pilot project by abolishing weekday on-call allowance claims and limiting the ETAP raise to weekend calls.
Weekday claims were abolished by creating 18-hour shifts (3pm-9am) instead – without providing additional compensation for graveyard hours.
The Galen Centre previously proposed abolishing sugar subsidies estimated at RM500 million a year to curb Malaysia’s high diabetes rates, saying these savings could also be used to fund an increase in doctors’ on-call allowance.
