Days from a strike, contract doctors fight to stay in service

 

PETALING JAYA: A general strike by junior doctors is just days away, with no response from the government so far, even as the doctors say their aim is to remain in public service.

A representative of the Hartal Doktor Kontrak group said the lack of government response left them with no choice but to carry out the strike (or hartal) on July 26 as planned.

Speaking to FMT on condition of anonymity, the representative said the aim of the hartal was to prevent the loss of contract doctors, either to the private sector or overseas.

The contract doctors launched a Black Flag protest movement on social media two weeks ago to highlight their complaints about the contract system.

She said the movement was not for the personal benefit of contract doctors, but to improve the Malaysian healthcare system as a whole.

“On paper, we can definitely leave because we are contract doctors. We don’t have any ties to the government or the health ministry,” she said.

“However, we wish for continuity of care for patients, to ensure that the public gets the healthcare that they need.”

She said there were not many incentives for contract doctors to remain in public service.

The main issue was the lack of opportunities for junior doctors to progress in their careers, either through a master’s degree or by taking up a specialisation.

They also complained of a haphazard leave system, with study leave only available to those doctors who have permanent positions in government service.

She said Malaysia needed to have a ratio of 14 specialists per 10,000 population, but only had 4:10,000 at present.

“We need three times as many specialists,” she said and warned of long-term consequences if a skills gap remained, between junior doctors, who have less than five years of experience, and specialists who began serving before the contract system was implemented.

Given the Covid-19 pandemic and its effect on different systems of the body, the need for more specialists was more important than ever, she said.

There are more than 20,000 doctors serving with the government on contract under a system introduced in 2016 to deal with a surplus of medical graduates at the time.

New medical graduates are required to serve with the public health system for about five years.

The contract doctors’ representative recalled that when the system was first introduced, she was in the middle of pursuing her studies, and she and her peers did not think much about it.

“We thought it may not be such an issue, maybe we could get permanent (positions) later. There was a lot of naivety around it, definitely,” she said. They had trusted that the government had “better plans” for them.

As D-day looms nearer, she admitted that the group had some worries over the repercussions. Despite the risks, Hartal Doktor Kontrak will go on, she said, with the support of the medical fraternity and the general public. - FMT