Review order on maternity leave for civil servants, MMA urges JPA

 

The public services department had said that an existing circular gives district health offices the discretion to grant doctors between 60 and 90 days of maternity leave. (Bernama pic)

PETALING JAYA: 

The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) has urged the public services department (JPA) to review the general order on maternity leave for civil servants, which is currently fixed at between 60 and 90 days.

MMA president Dr Azizan Abdul Aziz said a review was urgently needed given that the government amended the Employment Act 1955 last year to allocate 98 days of maternity leave for mothers.

“Unfortunately, this causes a double standard between the public and private sectors. Currently, a civil servant may get up to 38 fewer maternity leave days than their counterparts in the private sector.

“A shorter maternity leave period undermines the essential recovery time needed by new mothers and compromises the critical early bonding period between mother and infant, which is fundamental to the child’s development and the mother’s mental health.

Reducing this period not only puts undue stress on our dedicated medical officers but also potentially impacts the quality of care they can provide upon returning to work prematurely,

 she said in a statement.

The Hulu Langat health office recently caused a stir by allowing only 60 days of maternity leave for seven of its medical officers, which JPA director-general Wan Ahmad Dahlan Abdul Aziz said did not violate regulations.

Wan Ahmad said an existing circular gave the district health office the discretion to grant doctors between 60 and 90 days of maternity leave.

However, health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad later said the matter had been resolved with the full 90-day maternity leave restored for the seven doctors.

Azizan thanked Dzulkefly for settling the issue but said it reflected a need for improvements in the ministry’s management of human resources, which she claimed was the cause of many issues in the public healthcare system.

Despite the health minister’s commitment to enhancing the welfare of healthcare workers, there remains a disconnect at the operational level concerning the needs of the workforce, as demonstrated by this recent incident.

She also repeated MMA’s proposal for a digitalised system to map the public healthcare system’s resources in order to ensure an even distribution of the workforce nationwide. - FMT