KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 — Malaysia’s doctor workforce in the public sector has contracted for the first time in a decade since 2014, with a loss of 1,546 doctors in 2024.
Based on MOH’s Health Facts, the number of doctors in MOH declined by 2.7 per cent, or 1,444 people (including 129 housemen), from 53,512 in 2023 to 52,068 in 2024.
The public sector outside MOH saw a drop of 102 doctors (including two housemen) from 7,944 in 2023 to 7,842 in 2024.
Combining MOH and non-MOH, the number of doctors in the public sector declined from 61,456 in 2023 to 59,910 in 2024, marking the first contraction since 2014 when the doctor workforce shrank to 33,275 from 35,219 in 2013.
The 35,219 doctors in the public sector in 2013, which marked an unusually big increase, included 6,270 non-MOH doctors. It’s unclear how these 6,270 non-MOH doctors were suddenly reported that year, since the non-MOH category was reported as not available in subsequent years from 2014 to 2016, before 3,118 non-MOH doctors were reported in 2017.
When looking at MOH specifically, its doctor workforce increased from 28,949 in 2013 to 33,275 in 2014. Hence, the MOH’s 2024 contraction was historic since 2013, or even as far back as 2009 or earlier. The oldest available data from Health Facts was 2009; data on public doctors from 2009 to 2012 didn’t differentiate the public sector between MOH and non-MOH.
The MOH’s doctor workforce expanded annually since 2013 until the 2024 contraction, though 2020 data specific to the ministry was unavailable in the Health Facts document that combined both MOH and non-MOH data for that year.
MOH’s workforce of 52,068 doctors in 2024 was lower than 52,363 recorded in 2022.
Most of the doctors who left the MOH in 2024 were medical officers and specialists, numbering at 1,315, as the number of these senior doctors dropped from 47,012 in 2023 to 45,697 in 2024.
The number of housemen in Malaysia declined by a whopping 51 per cent from a peak of 13,136 in 2020 to 6,406 in 2024. The vast majority of trainee doctors serve in the MOH, with non-MOH in the public sector recording only a few dozen each year from 2022 to 2024.
In line with the declining trend of house officers, the number of doctors’ new full registrations, which weren’t differentiated by sector, fell 37 per cent from a peak of 5,641 in 2021 to 3,529 in 2024,
While the MOH lost 1,315 medical officers and specialists in 2024, the private sector gained 4,648 doctors to 21,013 in 2024 from 16,455 in 2023. The private sector previously recorded about 16,000 plus doctors each year in 2022 and 2021.
According to Health Facts, Malaysia had a total of 84,452 doctors across the public and private sectors in 2024, up from 82,227 the previous year. This was driven largely by private sector gains despite MOH’s contraction.
CodeBlue theorises that the main reason for the MOH’s historic doctor workforce contraction was the rejection of permanent positions that may have exceeded the number of formal resignations. Failure to report for duty, or no-shows, for permanent posts, and subsequent exits from the service upon the end of one’s contract isn’t recorded in the system as a resignation.
Latest available data shows that 359 permanent medical officers and 377 specialist doctors resigned from the MOH in 2023.
The attrition of 1,315 medical officers and specialists from the MOH in 2024 followed the failure of 1,118 medical officers to report for duty for permanent posts the previous year, comprising 20 per cent of those offered permanent appointments in 2023.
Last Monday, Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad touted the absorption of 4,500 contract medical officers into permanent roles this year, besides claiming successful delivery of more than 18,500 permanent doctor appointments since 2023, the “largest permanent appointment exercise” for contract doctors by the Madani government in the country’s history.
The minister’s claims do not tell the whole picture. A total of 18,500 permanent appointments offered doesn’t mean that every offer was taken up and each position filled upon reporting for duty. In other words, the positions are there but there are no doctors, similar to screening an unpopular movie in a large cinema hall with many empty seats.
As shown by MOH’s own data, the ministry failed to retain at least 1,118 medical officers in 2023, who declined offers of permanent positions, leading to an historic contraction of the ministry’s doctor workforce the next year. The number of no-shows for permanent posts nationwide in 2024 and 2025 were not publicly available.
Dzulkefly previously told Parliament that 43 per cent of medical officers offered permanent placements in Sarawak last year, or 332 doctors, did not report for duty as of November 2025. He also told the Dewan Negara last March that 40 per cent of doctors nationwide failed to report for duty for permanent positions.
As for this year’s offers of 4,500 permanent positions to medical officers, the first phase in June already saw rejections by 19 doctors posted to Sabah, comprising half of the 39 medical officers offered permanent placements there.
Deputy Health Minister Hanifah Hajar Taib even forecast an overall 50 per cent no-show rate among 560 medical officers, or a loss of 280 doctors, who will be offered permanent positions and posted to Sabah this year (the majority of 4,500 permanent appointment offers will take place in October).
Hence, even though 4,500 permanent positions are set to be offered in 2026, the MOH may possibly end up with fewer than 3,000 doctors if 40 to 50 per cent reject their offers and leave service at the end of their contracts.
CodeBlue estimates that MOH’s doctor workforce continued to contract in 2025 and 2026, likely at a worse rate than 2024, given that the nationwide 40 per cent no-shows for permanent posts in 2025 were twice as high as 20 per cent in 2023. MOH’s Health Facts 2026 with 2025 data hasn’t been released yet.
If high no-shows continue in October among 4,172 medical officers who are set to receive permanent appointment offers, then MOH’s doctor workforce will likely contract further in 2027.
CodeBlue’s forecast includes the impact of formal resignations among permanent medical officers and specialists amid missing data, but anecdotes suggest rising dissatisfaction in the health service due to increasing work burdens and new subspecialty training policies.
Lastly, besides no-shows for permanent posts and resignations, a shrinking pipeline of housemen will also play a major role in the contraction of the doctor workforce in the health service.
The ministry has generally dismissed doctors’ resignations by describing these as a tiny percentage of its overall workforce, believing that those who quit can be replaced by a continuous fresh supply of incoming doctors, even though junior doctors can’t be compared with experienced ones.
The MOH has also long treated permanent positions as the main incentive for retention since the contract system was introduced in 2016.
But data shows that the MOH is now squeezed from both sides – attrition of senior doctors (rejections of permanent appointment offers and formal resignations) and a continuous decline of housemen and new full registrations – to the extent that its entire medical workforce contracted in 2024.
This year, only 529 medical graduates reported for 5,000 housemanship slots offered in January, Dzulkefly told Parliament.
Two years after the MOH’s historic contraction of its doctor workforce, multiple government hospitals reported service disruptions over the past few months.
