The resignation of 3,510 medical officers between 2024 and 2026, including 1,252 permanent doctors, is deeply concerning.
The message is clear: job security alone is not enough to keep doctors in public service.
The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) welcomes the government’s commitment to ending the contract doctor system. However, permanent appointments are only part of the solution. We must address why doctors are leaving, not just replace those who have left.
MMA calls for a comprehensive retention strategy with concrete measures to:
- Improve remuneration: Review doctors’ salaries, allowances and on-call compensation to ensure they fairly reflect their responsibilities, working hours and professional demands.
- Provide clear career progression: Establish transparent promotion pathways, fairer advancement opportunities and greater recognition of experience and qualifications, so doctors can build rewarding long-term careers in public service.
- Improve access to specialisation: Increase funded specialist training positions in both the Master’s and Parallel Pathway programmes, ensure transparent and merit-based selection, and remove unnecessary administrative barriers that delay doctors’ career progression.
- Address excessive workloads: Ensure adequate staffing, more equitable distribution of duties and reasonable working hours, particularly in overstretched facilities.
- Protect doctors’ well-being: Introduce practical measures to improve work-life balance, including adequate rest after demanding shifts, predictable duty rosters and better workplace support.
These measures must come with clear implementation timelines, dedicated funding, and measurable targets. Retention cannot remain a policy aspiration. It must become a priority with tangible outcomes.
Doctors in public health care need more than job security. They need a working environment that values their contributions, supports their professional growth, and safeguards their well-being.
Recruitment without retention is a revolving door. Malaysia cannot afford to keep losing doctors while those who remain shoulder increasingly heavier workloads.
Retaining doctors is not just about protecting the medical profession. It is about protecting patient care and the future of our public health care system.
This press statement was issued by MMA president Dr Sivanaesan Letchumanan.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
