Medical fraternity says greater workforce autonomy is a positive step, but issues such as the lack of trainers, low retention and poor working conditions must also be addressed.
Nonetheless, they said, wider reforms are needed to train and retrain enough specialists to meet prevailing needs in the long term.
Consultant paediatrician Dr Amar-Singh HSS said the shortage is severe. He noted data cited by health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad showed that the ministry had 9,040 specialists across 29 core specialties as of December 2025.
However, it is estimated that 22,435 will be required by 2030.
He said the shortage was particularly acute among general physicians, paediatricians and surgeons, who handle much of the workload in their respective disciplines.
Amar said authorising the ministry to manage and distribute available workforce could help “to some degree” but would not make a meaningful difference in the long term without wider reforms.
“There are no easy fixes, no easy solutions. We need better, more sustainable and reform-based changes to our public health services,” he told FMT.
He called for an independent health services commission with the authority to look into issues such as healthcare manpower and funding, alongside better pay, career progression, postgraduate training opportunities and working conditions.
Dr Muhammad Yassin from the Hartal Doktor Kontrak group agreed that greater autonomy is a positive step as the ministry is better placed to understand manpower needs.
However, he said adequate funding and structural reforms are equally important, with poor remuneration and a lack of competitive incentives continuing to drive doctors away from public service.
He said shortages were also particularly evident in cardiothoracic surgery, oncology and subspecialties such as hepatobiliary surgery.
“The impact has been significant. There is an increased workload on serving doctors, longer waiting times for clinic appointments, and delays in elective and semi-urgent surgeries.”
“These pressures risk patient outcomes and contribute to burnout within the healthcare workforce,” he said.
The health ministry was granted full autonomy on July 9 to independently manage, organise and distribute its manpower based on the healthcare system’s workforce needs.
Dzulkefly said the move would allow the ministry to speed up the placement of healthcare workers based on service needs, while gradually addressing manpower imbalances and shortages at certain facilities.
Training and retaining specialists
Yassin said the shortage was driven by several factors, including limited training positions and doctors moving to the private sector or overseas.
He called for specialist training pathways to be expanded beyond local Master of Medicine programmes, saying well-regulated parallel pathways could increase specialist numbers without compromising quality.
The government has offered 4,500 permanent medical officer positions this year, bringing the total since 2023 to 18,564 while the health ministry has also established a task force to improve position management and is working with the higher education ministry on workforce supply planning.
What a young mind thinks
A houseman who wanted to be known only as Jerry said the number of specialists in the hospitals he had served in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor was generally adequate. Nonetheless, he conceded that this might not reflect the actual situation elsewhere.
He said shortages could leave junior doctors managing numerous patients while waiting for specialists who were juggling ward rounds, procedures, clinics and emergency cases.
“This issue becomes more apparent in the busier departments where the specialists would have to balance between ward rounds, procedures, clinics, emergency cases and administrative responsibilities,” he said.
Jerry said junior doctors had opportunities to pursue specialisation but questioned whether busy specialists would always have sufficient time to provide mentorship and career guidance.
Despite seeing the responsibilities and workload shouldered by specialists, he said it had not discouraged him from pursuing specialisation.
“If anything, it has made me think more carefully about what kind of specialist I actually want to become and what type of working environment is sustainable,” he said.
Jerry said the government’s permanent appointments and workforce reforms also gave him some optimism about building a career in public healthcare.
“Job security and a clear career pathway is important,” he added. - FMT
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