2021 moratorium on new medical courses a lie, says PKR man

New Health Minister Dr Dzulkifly Ahmad is urged to review the “exorbitant” charges imposed on students who wish to study medicine, particularly at private institutions of higher learning.

Malacca PKR vice-chairperson G Rajendran said fees to study medicine were expensive because the medical courses in the country were “controlled by certain quarters” with the help of the previous government.

"The moratorium announced by the previous health minister on new medical courses until 2021, supposedly due to a surplus of new doctors in the country, is a lie.

"In 2014, the health minister, when answering a question in Parliament, admitted that the number of medical doctors in Malaysia was about 30,000.

“The ratio would roughly be 1 to 1,100, which is one doctor to 1,100 patients (considering our population is 32 million),” Rajendran told Malaysiakini today.

This ratio, he said, was a far cry from the country's objective of having a ratio of 1:400.

He claimed that since 2014, the ministry had stopped disclosing the doctor-patient ratio figures, though it was thought to have reached 1:650 in 2016.

Rajendran said the reality was that the country actually did not have enough hospitals to station the number of fresh medical graduates that were being churned out every year.

"So, certain quarters saw the opportunity to benefit from the problem. The then Health Ministry officers were hand-in-glove with them to the point where they placed a moratorium on new medical courses.

"The moratorium allowed local private institutions and foreign universities already offering medical courses to charge fees according to their whim.

Too expensive

Rajendran also called on the Pakatan Harapan government to extend the necessary assistance to parents who were financially supporting their children to study medicine.

"In this country, there's a new saying which is, 'If a child wants to become a doctor, the parents will become patients.'

"This is the reality in Malaysia because the fees to study in a medical school are just too high," he said.

Rajendran pointed out that fees to study medicine could easily reach RM1 million in private institutions and parents without the aid of a scholarship or loan would have to fork out half their salaries monthly.

"More so, there are those who seek help from the Ah Long (loan sharks) and end up being in a huge debt," he said. - Mkini