Dr RA Lingeshwaran, a former director of the Sungai Bakap Hospital, said the measure will ease the growth in the overall number of contract doctors in public hospitals.

That means that a long-term solution still needs to be found to resolve the issue, he said.

Lingeshwaran said there are an estimated 26,300 contract medical officers currently, with a further 5,000 expected to enter service each year after completing two- to three-year stints as housemen.

“The current proposal alleviates the ongoing needs of annual graduates but will not increase the overall number of contract doctors. That is a good short-term solution to the issue,” he told FMT.

However, the health ministry and the Public Services Department (JPA) must also work on medium to long-term solutions, he added.

Although happy with Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s assurance to the Dewan Rakyat on Tuesday, Lingeshwaran said a long-term solution must be found quickly.

There is a need for the health ministry and JPA to address underlying issues affecting the medical profession so that this problem can be resolved once and for all, he said.

Lingeshwaran said the ministry must be fair to taxpayers by letting the public know how many doctors the country requires.

“We need to ensure that the number absorbed is justifiable based on workload and the needs of the populace,” he said.

According to the department of statistics, the annual growth rate between 2019 to 2021 stood at about 1%.

“The proposed annual absorption of 4,160 medical officers into permanent positions represents 12% of the 31,713 currently holding permanent positions in our hospitals.

“In a nutshell, the absorption rate of medical officers must be justified against the overall population growth of the country,” said Lingeshwaran.

He said the ratio of medical officers to the population was at 1:470 in 2021, lower than the average ratio of 1:277 for the 38 countries which form the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

However, Malaysia is not far behind compared to advanced countries like the US (1:384), Japan (1:400) and Korea (1:400).

“All these must be taken into consideration when the ministry and JPA sit down to deliberate the long-term solution to this complex problem,” he said.

Human resources planning vital, says MMA

Meanwhile, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) called for long-term planning of human resources in public healthcare.

MMA president Dr Muruga Raj Rajathurai said the health ministry must project its human resource needs over a period of five- to 10 years and identify milestones to achieving them.

MMA had asked JPA for this projection but had yet to receive a response, he said.

“The plan should include the targeted number of doctors, specialists, pharmacists, radiologists, allied health care personnel and other healthcare staff,” he said in a statement.

Muruga called for a health commission to be set up to plan, hire and manage the public healthcare workforce and its wages as the needs in the healthcare sector greatly differ from that of other government departments.

“To set up the commission, certain reforms will be needed in the financing of healthcare and its human resources.

“Additionally, we may also need to review the intake of medical students to match the supply to the demand for doctors in the future,” he added.