Health minister's 'special plea' for M'sian specialists: Come home

INTERVIEW | Recognising there are many Malaysian doctors, especially specialists, serving overseas, Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (above) is making a "special plea" for them to return home to serve the new government.

Dzulkefly, who himself is a toxicology specialist, said he hoped many would do so in view of the recent patriotic exuberance following Pakatan Harapan's win in last month's general election.

Dzulkefly said, for example, there are many medical specialists who are working in the United Kingdom.

"I hope they (specialists) would return home in droves. In the recent elections, we had seen the vigour for people to come back to vote for a new Malaysia. 

"In the near future I, for one, would like to communicate with them to make a special plea that the present government and I have the goodwill (to see them come back and practice here)," he toldMalaysiakini in an exclusive interview. 

Addressing the brain drain issue, he commended efforts by Talent Corporation Malaysia (TalentCorp) to help attract Malaysians overseas. 

TalentCorp was established in 2011 under the Prime Minister’s Department to identify, attract and retain the necessary talents to facilitate Malaysia's economic transformation.

It's Returning Expat Programme is aimed at inducing skilled citizens abroad to return home, with a slew of incentives including certain tax breaks.

'Some shortages more acute than others'

However, he said his ministry was also considering sending doctors abroad instead.

"We (the ministry) will continue to get them (Malaysian specialists) back but more importantly if we cannot get them back, we will try to reverse the procedure by sending our students there to be under their tutelage," he said. 

The health minister said the matter was urgent as hospitals in the country were facing a shortage of specialists, especially so in certain areas. 

In particular, more specialists were needed in the field of oncology, that is the study and treatment of cancer, and in the field of geriatric care as the population ages. 

He stated the current ratio of doctors to people was 1 to 632.

"Ideally, as stated by the World Health Organisation, a medium income country like Malaysia should have the 1 doctor to 400 people," he said. 

Asked on claims that some doctors were not able to get scholarships to pursue their studies as specialists, Dzulkefly said that the issue could be with the Education Ministry and not the Health Ministry. 

"However, I will check on this," he said. 

Meanwhile, he denied the country was having a lack of female gynaecologists and obstetricians here. 

"I know there is a lack of oncologist, maybe specialist is cardiothoracic (heart and chest or lungs), neurology (nerves and the nervous system) and as mentioned geriatric care. Some fields may be acute than others," he said. 

Public-private hospital collaboration

Dzulkefly said that under his tenure as minister, he wished to see better management of its human resources and ensure training would be carried out according to the need of the population. 

He also wanted to see improvement between public and private hospital collaboration so both may be able to share resources. 

For example, he pointed out that government hospitals may have the specialists, while private hospitals may have the necessary beds. 

"The ministry recognises there is congestion in public hospitals and this is where the collaboration would be important.

"Besides this, the private and public hospitals have their own specialists and the exchange of expertise can be done in a collaborative manner," he said. -Mkini