According to the Dewan Rakyat order paper for tomorrow, the Medical Act 1971 Amendment Bill is scheduled to be tabled for its first reading by health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad.

Seputeh MP Teresa Kok said it will also have to be tabled for a second reading for MPs to debate the bill.

“Once the second reading is complete, the bill proceeds to the committee stage, where each clause and any proposal for change may be debated.

“Only after that will it be tabled for a third reading for the Dewan Rakyat to pass the bill, before being taken to the Senate for its nod. It will be sent to the king for the royal assent before being gazetted,” she said.

Kok said with the current sitting ending on Thursday, it is hard to say if the bill will be tabled for its second and third readings by then, adding that it has been done before depending on the urgency of the matter.

“As the parallel pathway’s recognition is urgent and of utmost importance, I believe the health and higher education ministers will push for it to be passed at this session,” she told FMT.

The proposed amendments follow the controversy over the Malaysian Medical Council’s (MMC) refusal to recognise certain parallel pathway programmes such as the one for cardiothoracic surgeons who qualified from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, even as government hospitals face a dire shortage of such specialists.

MMC was sued by four parallel pathway cardiothoracic surgeons after it rejected their applications to be listed in the National Specialist Register (NSR).

Six specialists who qualified under a Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) pathology (medical genetics) programme are also embroiled in a legal tussle with MMC over their lack of recognition and listing in the NSR.

In a separate suit, a Malaysian neurologist based in Hong Kong has also taken MMC to court over his application for listing in the NSR.