Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam said the ministry was mulling over options to solve the problem.

“We are looking at reducing the number of recognised foreign medical colleges since the MMC (Malaysian Medical Council) is burdened with ensuring the quality of doctors produced by 330 foreign medical colleges.” he said while wrapping his ministry’s federal budget.

He said another option was to send doctors for housemanship to private medical centres.

“In principle, we are willing to send them to private medical centres if they can receive the same quality training as in government hospitals,” he said.

However, he said for this option to be effective, the private medical centres must expose the housemen to a certain number of patients, different types of illness or disease to be treated and an efficient administrative system.

He said in a private medical centre, a specialist operates as a unit and this was not suitable to train housemen.

“Besides, at private hospitals, the paying patients may not want to be treated by a housemen,” he pointed out.

Earlier, Subramaniam was asked by Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali (BN-Bagan Serai) the reasons for the high number of medical students waiting to do housemanship in government hospitals.

G Manivannan (PKR-Kapar) asked if new hospitals would have their intensive case units (ICUs), coronary care units (CCUs) and the accident and emergency (A&E) care facilities on the ground floor.

He also wanted to know if the health ministry would check old hospitals to ensure that the ICUs were safe for use.

Subramanian said the new hospitals to be built by the government would have the ICUs, CCUs and A&E care facilities on the ground floor.

“Approvals for hospital structures are given by the Practice Division of the ministry. In principle, the ICUs, CCUs and A&E care facilities should be on the ground floor,” said Subramanian.

The health minister said Manivannan’s suggestion would be taken into consideration in the construction of new hospitals.