Health Ministry wants to hire more doctors but no funding - Zaliha

 

PARLIAMENT | The Health Ministry has revealed that it does not have enough funding to hire more doctors to tackle the public healthcare staff shortage.

Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said recruitment of doctors cannot be done if the ministry does not receive the allocation for it.

“If there are no positions and if we don’t get the money, therefore it (hiring) can’t be done,” she told the Dewan Rakyat today.

The minister was replying to Dr Kelvin Yii’s (Pakatan Harapan-Bandar Kuching) additional question on the Health Ministry’s plan to address the issue of severe understaffing in the public health service that has caused overcrowding of patients in the emergency departments across the country.

“We have and will continue to hold engagement sessions with staff at all position levels.

“This issue should not only be on the shoulders of the Health Ministry, it should be discussed with other agencies including the Public Services Department and Finance Ministry,” she said.

Zaliha added that she will be meeting healthcare workers and on Feb 28, she will be visiting hospital directors in a bid to address the longstanding issue.

7 initiatives

Earlier, the minister said the Health Ministry has come up with seven initiatives to reduce overcrowding in hospital emergency departments.

They include implementing a Short Stay Unit project, centralised digitisation of the Bed Management Unit through the Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre system at hospitals and outsourcing using government agencies and private sectors.

Zaliha said the overcrowding problem in public healthcare facilities also requires medium and long-term solutions.

This includes actions from central agencies on lack of funds and healthcare personnel, contract appointments and absorption into permanent positions, shortage of healthcare facilities and equipment as well as a thorough digitalisation transformation.

Previously, a number of government hospitals had reportedly been facing problems of overcrowding, which pushed their already thin workforce to bear an increasing workload.

There was also a hospital bed shortage with The Star reporting that the wait time for beds could stretch to two days or more.

Among the hospitals identified as having such problems was the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital in Klang, Selangor, which had to close its emergency department to non-critical cases earlier this month.

A CodeBlue poll recently found widespread dissatisfaction and anger among government healthcare workers.

Yesterday, Malaysiakini reported that Zaliha was committed to meeting the ministry’s June deadline to table a Health White Paper while efforts are underway to address urgent concerns faced by healthcare workers. - Mkini