KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 14 — The Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy today reiterated its demand for the establishment of a Health Service Commission, in the wake of the Long Lellang tragedy.
Galen Centre chief executive Azrul Mohd Khalib said the Health Service Commission – aimed at recruiting, retaining, deploying, and supporting the welfare, remuneration, and career development of health care workers in the public sector – must be announced in the upcoming Budget 2027.
“The goal is simple: raise human resource management in the public health care sector as close as possible to the standards which we would reasonably expect from a responsible private-sector employer. It is neither impossible nor unreasonable,” said Azrul in a statement today.
“The current arrangement of being managed under the Public Service Department (JPA) and Public Services Commission (SPA) is no longer fit for purpose. Public health care workers should have their own Service Commission.”
He pointed out that the fatal Flying Doctor Service (FDS) helicopter crash last September 8 triggered accounts by health care workers in the public sector on social media about inadequate accommodation, difficult and unreasonable transfers and postings, financial pressures, excessive workloads, unsafe or unreasonable working environments, inadequate allowances, poor welfare support, and administrative systems that appear disconnected from the realities of frontline health care.
“These accounts should not be dismissed as complaints from people who are unwilling to make sacrifices, are ‘manja’ or were ignorant to what they signed up for. Many of these health care workers have already made enormous sacrifices,” said Azrul.
“They work long hours, accept difficult postings, spend time away from their families, and take on responsibilities that directly affect patients’ lives and safety.
“Our health care workers are expected to look after everyone else. The system must demonstrate that it is equally capable of looking after them.”
“The problem is that we have normalised hardship, exploitation and suffering. We have allowed misery, burnout, exhaustion and personal sacrifice to become part of the expected culture of working in public healthcare. That needs to end.”
A Health Service Commission’s mandate should include workforce planning, recruitment and permanent appointments, deployment and transfers, competitive remuneration and allowances, occupational health and safety, staff accommodation and welfare, insurance protection for hazardous duties, transparent grievance mechanisms, career progression, specialist and leadership pathways, and targeted incentives for service in rural, remote, and underserved areas.
“We cannot demand that health care workers travel into difficult terrain, work in overstretched facilities, undertake hazardous assignments or accept remote postings, and then treat their safety and welfare as secondary administrative matters,” said Azrul.
“The government has an obligation to manage risks, protect health care workers, insure them appropriately and compensate them fairly. It is unacceptable that instead, they are required to sign liability waivers.”
A government doctor previously revealed that he had to sign a liability waiver – which fully indemnified the government against all liabilities from injury, disability, or death – before flying on a helicopter on an FDS mission in Sarawak in 2018.
In August 2025, the Health parliament special select committee chaired by Pulai MP Suhaizan Kaiat recommended an indefinite postponement in establishing a Health Service Commission.
The committee’s report, which was tabled in the Dewan Rakyat, claimed that establishing a Health Service Commission wouldn’t necessarily solve all problems in the health service and that staffing decisions would still fall under JPA and the Ministry of Finance (MOF).
This proposal was first raised 16 years ago in 2009. Prime Minister Najib Razak’s Cabinet also deferred the formation of a Health Service Commission.
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s government has a year or so left in office before the 16th general election is due by February 2028.
In the 15th general election in 2022, Pakatan Harapan (PH) had pledged to increase public health care spending to 5 per cent of Malaysia’s gross domestic product (GDP) within five years, besides establishing a national Health Service Commission.
Those pledges are due to be fulfilled in the upcoming Budget 2027.
Former Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa recently sought to defend herself against a CodeBlue article titled “After Tragedy, Zaliha Reverses Earlier Opposition To Health Service Commission”.
Writing on Facebook last Friday, Dr Zaliha insisted that she didn’t change her position and that she had always supported the establishment of the commission.
Despite her renewed claims as a government backbencher now, the fact remains that the Health Service Commission wasn’t listed in the Health White Paper that Parliament had passed in 2023 during her tenure as health minister.
