I would like to bring up an issue regarding the serious and prolonged shortage of manpower at Hospital Sultanah Aminah Johor Bahru (HSAJB), particularly in several major departments such as Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Medicine, and Surgery.
At present, there are only 13, five, and 23 house officers respectively in each of these departments, which is clearly insufficient. There used to be as many as 60 house officers per department.
This issue has persisted for more than six months and has resulted in an excessive workload, where a single house officer is required to perform duties far beyond reasonable capacity.
This situation poses a significant risk of extreme fatigue (burnout) and adversely affects both staff well-being and the quality of patient care.
For example, we are expected to do solo night shifts, taking care of 10 to 12 wards in the medical department, and solo oncall in the postnatal and antenatal ward with more than 90 patients per ward.
All this is really exhausting, especially when we are working with a medical officer who expects us to carry out everything alone.
Plus, it must be emphasised that manpower shortages should not be used as justification to deny the leave entitlements of house officers. However, there are practices where Annual Leave (AL), Medical Leave (MC), and Emergency Leave (EL) are restricted on the grounds of staff shortage in certain departments like O&G.
Leave entitlement is our fundamental right. The responsibility to address manpower issues should rest with senior management. Nevertheless, in several departments, leave applications are frequently rejected due to staff shortages, which is deeply unfair.
In some departments, AL has even been frozen by the medical officers in charge, despite them having no authority to do so. This constitutes an abuse of power.
Additionally, there are practices where weekly rest days are deducted if MC or EL is taken, as well as restrictions imposed on rest days once AL exceeds a certain duration. These practices are unjust and inconsistent with the implementation in other hospitals.
Furthermore, most departments in HSAJB do not allow CTG claims for house officers who work on public holidays, despite this being clearly stipulated in Ministry of Health (MOH) guidelines. Internal departmental rules appear to be inconsistent with official MOH policies and are implemented at the discretion of individual departments.
Numerous complaints have been raised through internal channels, including emails and existing complaint systems; however, to date, no clear or effective action has been taken. This has resulted in an unhealthy and unsustainable working environment.
We have also emailed the Public Service Department (JPA) regarding this situation, but we received a reply saying the situation is not within their control.
In light of the above, I hope the CodeBlue team can help amplify this issue by publishing this letter, as the matter has been overlooked for far too long.
House officers are doctors as well, who have a life outside the four walls of the hospital, not merely departmental staff expected to follow all instructions from superiors without consideration for basic humanity.
Thank you for your attention and consideration. I sincerely hope that this complaint reaches the relevant authorities.
The author is a house officer at HSAJB. CodeBlue is providing the author anonymity as civil servants are prohibited from writing to the press.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
