KUALA LUMPUR, June 10 — Freezing new positions and hiring for unfilled vacancies may exacerbate staffing shortages in the health service, warned Hartal Doktor Kontrak (HDK) and two MPs.
The contract doctors’ group said any reduction in intake numbers in the Ministry of Health (MOH) must be done carefully with comprehensive impact assessment, besides calling for critical clinical roles to be clearly exempted from the freeze.
“Hartal Doktor Kontrak (HDK) warns that the freezing of new Ministry of Health positions and salaries for unfilled posts could severely worsen the already critical manpower crisis in Malaysia’s overstretched health care sector,” HDK told CodeBlue in a statement yesterday.
“HDK supports cost-saving measures on generic drugs where therapeutically equivalent, but not all drugs have generic equivalents, particularly specialised and critical care medications.
“We strongly object to any blanket restrictions on laboratory testing, as investigations are never done ‘for fun’ but based on genuine clinical need.
“The discretion to order tests must remain with the attending physician; any rule that delays or prevents necessary diagnostics could directly harm patient outcomes.”
CodeBlue broke the story yesterday on spending cuts in the MOH that took effect last June 1, including a freeze on the creation of new positions, except through trade-offs or redeployment without additional financial implications.
Although MOH secretary-general Hasnol Zam Zam Ahmad’s circular listing 10 measures for operational expenditure reductions didn’t specify freezing hiring for unfilled vacancies in existing positions, he said the Ministry of Finance (MOF) has suggested a freeze on salaries and wages for unfilled positions across all ministries.
The MOH also imposed stricter controls on ELM overtime allowance claims for implementation or support staff, besides instructing a generic-first policy for medicines and “prudent” laboratory testing supported by “genuine clinical need and reasonable medical justification”.
Petaling Jaya MP Lee Chean Chung supported measures to improve procurement efficiency, optimising medicine usage, and reducing “unnecessary” tests as sensible ways to control costs.
However, the PKR lawmaker expressed concern over the freeze on the creation of new health care positions, saying critical frontline and specialist positions should be exempted.
“Malaysia’s public health care system is already operating under significant manpower constraints. As demand for health care services continues to rise due to population growth, ageing demographics, and increasing chronic diseases, freezing new positions risks creating a larger gap between health care needs and workforce capacity,” Lee told CodeBlue in a statement yesterday.
“More importantly, the government is continuing to invest in new hospitals, clinics, and health care facilities. These infrastructure investments will not achieve their intended outcomes if sufficient doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and allied health professionals are not available to staff them. Buildings alone do not deliver health care services; people do.”
Lee has pushed strongly for a new Petaling Jaya public hospital, after which Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad announced the construction of a 500-bed specialist hospital for the major district even though the project isn’t listed on the 13th Malaysia Plan.
“A prolonged hiring freeze may also increase workloads on existing personnel, contribute to burnout and attrition that is already alarming now, and ultimately weaken the resilience of the public health care system. The short-term savings achieved today may result in higher costs tomorrow through staff shortages, longer waiting times, and reduced access to care,” said Lee.
“Cost-saving measures should focus on reducing inefficiencies and wastage, not compromising the human resources needed to sustain quality health care services. Critical frontline and specialist positions should remain exempted to ensure Malaysia’s health care system remains capable of meeting future challenges.
“Health care manpower should be viewed not merely as an operating cost, but as a strategic investment in national resilience and public well-being.”
Kapar MP Dr Halimah Ali from PAS urged the government to totally exempt MOH from spending cuts.
“Health care should be the last to suffer operational expenditure cuts because it caters for the basic needs of the people at large, especially the needy ones,” she told CodeBlue yesterday.
“Of course, to provide adequate and effective health care, it needs sufficient funding. Human capital remains a core issue. Freezing the creation of new positions and controlling ELM will definitely impact health services.”
Parti Bersama Malaysia leader Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad, an ex-minister and former Setiawangsa MP, urged the government to transition to targeted subsidies for RON95 petrol, like for electricity tariffs and diesel.
“Both Rafizi and I raised this while we were in government, so maybe the richest 5 to 10 per cent would be paying market price and the subsidy can be direct cash transfers for the vast majority of Malaysians,” he told CodeBlue yesterday, referring to his party colleague and former minister Rafizi Ramli.
“This would allow more protection for crucial sectors, such as health and higher education, from budget cuts.”
The MOH secretary-general’s circular on operational expenditure cuts noted that subsidies are projected to surge to RM58.4 billion this year, nearly four times higher than the approved RM15 billion allocation, amid soaring global oil prices due to the United States-Iran war.
