I am a Malaysian scrub nurse. Today, I am proudly employed at the Golden Jubilee National Hospital under NHS Scotland, earning a respectful wage, working without restrictions, and living my life.
But I am writing this from the United Kingdom because my own country’s health care system chewed me up, discriminated against me, and threw me away.
I am writing to expose the catastrophic human cost of Malaysia’s outdated, unscientific, and cruel policies regarding health care workers living with HIV.
We constantly talk about the “brain drain” of medical professionals leaving Malaysia. This is my story of why we leave. We don’t just leave for better pay; we leave to survive.
My nightmare began in June 2018 when I was working at a private hospital in Kuala Lumpur. After being treated for tuberculosis, Occupational Health asked me to take an HIV test. The doctor assured me that if it was positive, I would simply be relocated to a suitable department. I trusted her. I tested positive.
Two weeks later, the HR and Nursing Director told me they had no position for me and forced my resignation. I was young, terrified, and naive. I quietly resigned, thinking I could just start over elsewhere.
I was wrong. What followed was a multi-year cycle of betrayal by the very medical system meant to heal people.
Desperate for money and work, I reached out to the Malaysian AIDS Council (MAC) for help, but they brushed me off, stating HIV tests weren’t part of standard medical checkups, and offered no follow-up.
Left to fend for myself, I eventually secured a scrub nurse position at another private hospital in Selangor. Knowing I needed antiretroviral treatment, I went to my HIV clinic at a public health clinic in Kuala Lumpur and disclosed my situation to my doctor.
Instead of treating me, my doctor looked disappointed and threatened to email my hospital to force a department change, claiming it was her “job to protect the public.”
As a medical professional, she ignored the established science of U=U (Undetectable = Untransmittable) and prioritised her outdated fears over my right to medical confidentiality and life-saving care.
Terrified of losing another job, I fled the clinic. I abandoned my medication. I quit the private hospital before the clinic could out me.
I was eventually hired by another private hospital in Kuala Lumpur, but because I was terrified of re-engaging with the public health care system, I worked without medication. Predictably, my health deteriorated.
My life completely unravelled. I fell into severe financial ruin, unable to afford basic necessities like toothpaste. My partner cheated on me, broke up with me, and kicked me out.
Then, in August 2020, the physical toll culminated in a stroke.
I was admitted to Kuala Lumpur Hospital (HKL) for two months. Because I had been forced off my medication out of fear of losing my livelihood, my immune system had completely collapsed. My CD4 count had plummeted to a critical, life-threatening level of just 2.
Upon discharge, my anaesthetist explicitly asked me to quit, offering to pay me double my last salary just so they wouldn’t have to process my medical report and officially fire me. I took the money because I had no choice.
I retreated to my hometown in Miri, Sarawak. I got a job at a private hospital but was fired on day one because their mandatory medical checkup included an HIV test. The cycle was inescapable.
Desperate, I reached out to the Social Security Organisation (Socso) for assistance, and through their help, I secured a one-year contract position with the Ministry of Health (MOH) at a government hospital in Sarawak. By this time, I knew I had to escape Malaysia to survive, but my Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) withdrawal was denied because I was technically employed.
While working at that MOH hospital, a matron discovered a photo of me on Instagram from my time in the stroke ward at HKL. I was immediately transferred to a non-clinical specialist clinic.
Then came the final, most calculated insult. To transition from a contract to permanent staff member in MOH, I had to take an entrance exam. Even though my stroke symptoms had only lasted for three days and I was fully capable of taking the test, the hospital outright refused to allow me to sit for the written exam.
They then used that orchestrated “failure” as the official excuse to dismiss me at the end of my one-year contract. They weaponised my brief medical history to deliberately sabotage my employment.
That dismissal was my salvation. It unlocked my EPF funds.
I used every cent of my EPF to gamble on my life. I applied through a recruitment agency for a position in the UK. For a year, I studied, took exams, passed interviews, and navigated an expensive visa process. It was a matter of life and death. If I failed, I had nothing left.
I didn’t fail.
In December 2023, NHS Scotland hired me. Under UK law and World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, my HIV status is treated as a protected medical condition, not a crime.
As long as I take my medication and maintain an undetectable viral load, I am free to work as a scrub nurse in the operating theatre. The UK respects the medical science that Malaysia’s Ministry of Health preaches to the public but refuses to apply to its own staff.
Today, thanks to Dovato medication, my CD4 count has risen from 2 to a healthy 732. My viral load is completely undetectable. I am healthy, strong, and entirely free to work safely as a scrub nurse in the operating theatre.
Even the institutions meant to protect human rights in Malaysia proved to be utterly apathetic. A full year after I emailed Suhakam (Human Rights Commission of Malaysia) pleading for help regarding my situation, they finally called me. By that time, I had already been working safely in Scotland for three months.
Their only response to my ordeal? “Congratulations.”
No investigation, no advocacy, no accountability. Just a hollow congratulation for surviving the system they failed to challenge.
I want the hospital directors, the policymakers in MOH, and the clinic doctors, and the indifferent rights commissions who threw me away to know this: I did not just survive; I rose higher than ever.
Malaysia is bleeding talent. You are losing passionate, skilled nurses not just to better exchange rates, but to a system that lacks basic humanity and scientific integrity.
Until MOH updates its guidelines to reflect 21st century medicine, you will continue to lose people like me to countries that actually value us.
The author is a Malaysian scrub nurse in NHS Scotland. CodeBlue is giving the author anonymity because of his HIV status. CodeBlue is also withholding the names of all the private and public health care facilities that allegedly discriminated against the author.
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
