The Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Associations, Malaysia (FPMPAM) extends its deepest condolences to the families, colleagues, and loved ones of the pilot and four Ministry of Health (MOH) personnel who lost their lives in the tragic Flying Doctor Service helicopter crash at Long Lellang, Sarawak, on September 8, 2026.
They were carrying out an essential public service — bringing health care to Malaysians living in some of the most remote and inaccessible parts of our country.
Their deaths should prompt more than expressions of gratitude and condolence. They should compel us to examine how Malaysia protects public personnel who are required, in the course of their employment, to undertake duties involving exceptional risk.
FPMPAM welcomes the reviews and investigations announced following the Long Lellang tragedy. However, experience tells us that public attention inevitably moves on, while systemic problems can remain unresolved.
The investigation into the cause of this accident must proceed independently and without speculation. But determining why an aircraft crashed is different from determining whether the personnel whom the government sends into hazardous environments are adequately protected.
The questions now raised extend across several areas — occupational safety and health, public-service conditions, insurance and compensation, aviation and transport safety, government procurement, contractual liability, and the responsibilities of private contractors providing services to the government.
No single ministry can adequately resolve all these matters acting alone. FPMPAM therefore proposes the establishment of a time-limited National Inter-Agency Committee on Occupational Risk Protection for Frontline Public Personnel, coordinated at the central government level and involving the relevant ministries and agencies, including the MOH, Public Service Department (JPA), Ministry of Finance (MOF), Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH), relevant transport and aviation authorities, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the Sabah and Sarawak state governments, together with representatives of affected personnel and appropriate independent professional expertise.
The Committee should examine not only the Flying Doctor Service (FDS), but the broader protection afforded to public personnel who are required to undertake duties carrying exceptional occupational risk.
There should be a fundamental principle underlying this review: where the government requires its personnel to undertake exceptional occupational risk in the course of their official duties, there must be a corresponding duty to ensure appropriate protection for those personnel and their families.
The review should therefore include existing insurance and compensation arrangements, hazardous-duty allowances, safety and risk-management requirements, and any indemnity, release or liability-waiver documents that personnel may be required to sign as a condition of undertaking such duties.
Particular attention should also be given to situations where hazardous services are outsourced to private contractors. The use of a private operator should not diminish the protection afforded to government personnel undertaking official duties.
The Committee’s work should culminate within six months in a National Occupational Risk Protection Framework for Frontline Public Personnel, establishing:
Minimum insurance, death and permanent-disability protection.
- A transparent and predetermined compensation framework for personnel and their dependants.
- Clear rules governing indemnity, release and liability-waiver documents.
- Objective classification of hazardous duties and periodic review of risk allowances.
- Minimum safety training and risk briefing before deployment.
- Minimum insurance, safety, accountability and liability requirements for private contractors carrying or deploying government personnel.
- Mandatory periodic review of these protections so that allowances, benefits, and safeguards do not remain unchanged for decades.
FPMPAM also believes that the role of occupational safety and health authorities in relation to personnel deployed on such duties should be clarified.
Where an employee is required by his or her employer to enter an aircraft, vessel, ambulance, disaster area or other higher-risk environment in order to perform official duties, occupational risk should not fall between the jurisdictional boundaries of different agencies.
Neither should personnel feel compelled to accept hazardous assignments without adequate protection because declining such duties might affect their training, posting, assessment or career progression.
Most importantly, the Committee’s recommendations, the government’s response and a clear implementation timetable should be made public.
We should not need another tragedy to discover where the gaps in protection lie. The Long Lellang tragedy provides Malaysia with an opportunity to move from review to reform, and to establish a system that protects people before they are placed in harm’s way, rather than determining their worth and their families’ entitlements only after lives have been lost.
Those who undertake exceptional risks in the service of the nation deserve more than our gratitude after tragedy. They deserve to know, before they undertake that risk, that the nation will protect them and their families should the worst happen.
This press statement was issued by FPMPAM president Dr Shanmuganathan TV Ganeson.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
