MMA president Dr Muruga Raj Rajathurai said there were complaints from junior doctors about constant struggles to access the existing eHouseman (eHO) portal and frequent system crashes.

“The placement selection is carried out on a first-come-first-served basis, with the doctors being divided into several selection phases,” he said in a statement today.

However, he added, not all options were made available in each of the selection phases, “leading to an unfair and partly luck-based system”.

Muruga also said relocating doctors who were enrolled to become specialists (after being offered permanent posts) affected the doctors as their training required them to be at specific facilities.

Noting that even though the doctors concerned only needed to send a letter to the public services department (JPA) to inform it of their status, he said this was an unnecessary extra step.

It showed that the JPA and the health ministry were not communicating adequately, he added.

In Malaysia, doctors either enrol in a Master of Medicine (MMed) programme or choose a parallel pathway to become medical specialists.