Task force: No strong evidence that house officer's death linked to bullying

There is no strong evidence to link the death of a house officer attached to the Penang Hospital with bullying at the workplace, the Healthcare Work Culture Improvement Task Force’s analysis revealed.

Task force chairperson Prof Siti Hamisah Tapsir said the analysis was done on the Ministry of Health (MOH) Integrity Unit’s Detection and Verification Report relating to the incident.

“The task force maintains this view that as long as there is no additional information related to the death of the house officer received from the police following their investigations into the case,” she said during the media briefing on the Healthcare Work Culture Improvement Report 2022 here today.

The task force was set up on May 13 following the death of the house person attached to the Penang Hospital, in addition to reports and complaints received regarding bullying incidents and psychological stress faced not only by house officers but also health service staff.

On April 17, a 25-year-old male house officer was found dead, believed to have fallen from his apartment building near the Penang Hospital.

60pct say MOH work culture positive

On the findings of a survey on healthcare work culture, which involved 110,411 respondents from the Health Ministry, Siti Hamisah said 60 percent of them stated that the ministry’s work culture was positive, especially in regard to patient care, community, and teamwork.

She said incidents of burnout, bullying and unhealthy work culture do occur at the Health Ministry but were at different levels and do not involve all health facilities.

“The bullying culture does not only occur among the house officers, but across all levels of MOH employees, either directly or indirectly.

“Among the contributing factors are the lack of competence, skills, and level of readiness to carry out the assigned tasks,” she said.

Siti Hamisah said the task force also found that compliance with the house officers’ flexible work system was not comprehensive, house officers’ training was not consistent from one hospital to another, and long working hours for the house officer, among other issues.

“Hence, the task force proposes a more structured and consistent approach through compliance and strengthening of the existing standards and guidelines,” she said.

Siti Hamisah said the task force also found the need to optimise the number of human resources and infrastructure facilities to ensure continuity of the best patient care.

“Most of the work is still carried out manually and the lack of digitalisation has caused an increase in avoidable workload and delays in the delivery of health services,” she said.

The task force also outlined 10 main recommendations to improve and empower health services at the ministry and all its facilities, including the improvement of the e-housemen system and the establishment of a house officer support group.

“The proposed improvement of work culture must not have a negative impact on the quality of their medical officers and services,” she said.

- Bernama