The poll conducted by MMA’s Section Concerning House Officers, Medical Officers, and Specialists (Schomos) early last month revealed that only 5% of public healthcare facilities are adequately staffed.
According to the survey, which involved a total of 117 respondents from government healthcare facilities across the country, 32% said they needed an increase of up to 50% of manpower, while 46% said they required a 100% increase.
Nearly half of the respondents (48.3%) said the shortages were due to doctors either quitting or being transferred, while 43.6% said there was some form of facility or equipment failure at their workplace.
MMA president Dr Azizan Abdul Aziz said one of main reasons for the lack of manpower was believed to be brain drain, in light of the sudden increase of doctors resigning and not accepting permanent posts.
She called on the health ministry to establish a transparent dashboard to track healthcare worker numbers in real time.
“The human resources unit of the health ministry needs to take this seriously as only with proper data can we establish the true extent of the shortages,” she said in a statement.
In March, the health ministry said a total of 3,064 contract doctors had resigned over the last three years, with a whopping 1,354 leaving the service in 2022.
Among the reasons cited by the junior doctors were better offers in the private sector and public universities, personal problems and health issues.
Azizan said aligning public healthcare worker salaries with those in the private sector could help retain doctors in the civil service, welcoming the announcement of the upcoming pay hike for civil servants.
She said the MMA was keenly awaiting the government’s update on the new on-call rates for doctors, the hourly allowance of which currently stands at RM9 per hour during weekends.
Health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad said in February that new on-call allowance rates would be announced “soon”, while the MMA had proposed a 178% increase to RM25 per hour.
Azizan said other efforts that could be made to mitigate the shortage in manpower included retaining doctors whose contracts are set to end in July.
She also called for swift repairs to broken facilities and equipment, especially at facilities in rural areas, to ensure that Malaysians there receive the same level of care.
“In the long term, we also need a public services commission that can manage the healthcare system separately from the current framework of the health and finance ministries and the public services department.
“This is to allow for more flexible decision-making when it comes to staffing and service expansion needs,” she said.