Dr RA Lingeshwaran said the group lobbied to defer the bill as they are disputing the amendment that would recognise the health ministry as a specialist training organisation.
He said that according to their claims, about 10,000 specialists in public and private hospitals would face deregistration from the National Specialist Register (NSR) as they were trained at hospitals run by the health ministry.
“Their contention is that only training hospitals run by the higher education ministry should be recognised as training centres,” he said when debating the bill in the Dewan Negara today.
“They also said the parallel pathway programme graduates cannot be recognised as they are not trained by the health ministry and a professional medical organisation.”
Lingeshwaran said he is unsure of the group’s motive in opposing a bill that aims to close the gap in recognising cardiothoracic surgeons who are in short supply in public hospitals.
He said the group opposed the move to recognise these surgeons, whose training is linked to the prestigious royal colleges of physicians and surgeons.
Naming a few among the group, he said two hold a specialist certificate from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, institutions they had questioned in their emails.
“Are they then questioning their very own qualifications because the recognitions do not go through the Malaysian Qualifications Agency?” he said.
“There are others who have the Master of Surgery qualification only. Where then did they obtain their cardiothoracic surgery training if not at the health ministry facilities?”
He said that among the eight opposing the bill were also three academics who did not possess specialist certificates.
The bill, passed by the Dewan Rakyat two weeks ago, was passed with a voice vote in the Dewan Negara later in the evening.
The amendments, among others, recognise all specialists who obtained their qualifications via the parallel pathway and empower the health minister as well as the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) to recognise specialists to be listed in the NSR.
Lingeshwaran also highlighted the removal of about 20 dental specialists from the dental NSR after the 2018 amendments to the Malaysian Dental Act which came into force in 2021.
He said they included several professors from Universiti Malaya’s dental faculty, with at least one initiating legal action against the Malaysian Dental Council (MDC) over the non-recognition.
“Does the MDC understand the implication of not recognising these specialists who have worked as specialists for such a long time, performed hundreds of dental surgeries and taught thousands of dentists?” he asked.
He called on health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad to intervene and resolve the issue.