KUALA LUMPUR, July 14 — Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad announced yesterday that contract doctors are now eligible to claim for transfers for permanent positions, starting with last month’s batch.
Beginning last June 22, medical officers were eligible to claim for food, hotel accommodation, travel, and cargo transport, among other expenses, when reporting for duty in their new placements.
On that date, medical officers were given placements under contract status at their new facilities. Within a week of reporting for duty, their permanent appointments came into effect automatically, thus allowing them to fulfil conditions to claim fully for relocation reimbursement.
“We hear your welfare concerns and we act with real empathy. Starting from July 2026, newly permanent UD10 doctors are now fully eligible to claim their relocation allowances! No more paying out-of-pocket to relocate and serve the rakyat,” Dzulkefly posted on X last night.
Despite this new benefit, about half, or 19 of 39 medical officers posted to Sabah last month, rejected their offers for permanent posts, with only 20 reporting for duty on June 29, Deputy Health Minister Hanifah Hajar Taib told Parliament last Thursday.
She forecast an overall 50 per cent no-show rate among medical officers posted to Sabah this year for permanent appointments.
Under the first phase of a nationwide exercise for permanent appointments of 4,500 medical officers this year, 328 were offered permanent positions in the June intake (including 39 in Sabah). Under the upcoming second phase in October, another 4,172 medical officers will be offered permanent positions.
Citing the absorption of 4,500 contract medical officers into permanent positions this year, Dzulkefly boasted on X that the KKM-JPA Perjawatan Task Force was “delivering immediate structural corrections”.
He omitted mention of the 50 per cent no-show rate among the 39 doctors posted to Sabah in June, besides failing to specify how many of the 328 offered permanent positions nationwide that month had rejected their offers.
“Since 2023, the Madani government has executed the largest permanent appointment exercise for contract doctors in our history! Including this year’s cohort, this landmark effort successfully delivers over 18,500 permanent doctor appointments within just a four-year window,” wrote Dzulkefly.
However, the health minister himself told the Dewan Negara last March that 40 per cent of doctors nationwide failed to report for duty for permanent positions. This was similar to the 43 per cent no-shows in Sarawak last year.
In 2023, a total of 1,118 medical officers nationwide didn’t report for duty for permanent appointments, comprising 20 per cent no-shows among 5,489 offered permanent posts. This marked a significant jump from 2022 when only 2 per cent, or 78 doctors, didn’t report for duty.
Dzulkefly also announced yesterday that the MOH now holds “absolute autonomy” to directly manage, restructure, and deploy its approved health care posts.
Public Service director-general Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz said recently that the Public Service Department (JPA) has granted the MOH full autonomy to manage and allocate 11,000 positions, surpassing the ministry’s request of 9,000.
Dzulkefly told Sibu MP Oscar Ling in the Dewan Rakyat special chambers session yesterday that the ratio of doctors to population in Sarawak has improved from 1:682 in 2019 to 1:590 in 2024, similar to the nationwide trend in that period from 1:482 to 1:403.
