HEALTH WORKERS THREATEN STRIKE - SEBAB DASAR ZAMAN "MAHAZALIM DAN MAHAFIRAUN" KEKAL

 Kepada Menteri Kesihatan Dr Zaliha, dengar baik-baik. Your job as well as the job of all your Cabinet colleagues is the most easiest and simplest job in the world. You have just taken over the government after 67 years of Dasar Zaman Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun. 

This was the battle cry of your so called reformasi for 25 years. That the previous government was Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun.

So your job is so easy. Just reverse all the policies of the Zaman Mahazalim and Mahafiraun. You will be able to fix the Ministry of Health and the whole country.

But you are not. So we get this news:

• Health minister called public healthcare workers to meet before strike
• told protesters to “think wisely”, strike will not solve problems 

(OSTB : The problems have been created by years of poor policy making. The doctors and nurses have been complaining for years. Obviously no one has been listening to them)

issues plaguing public healthcare, manpower shortage, long hours, overcrowding
needs more time, to find best possible solutions

Ipoh Timor MP raised concerns about possible strike by public healthcare
learnt about strike from over dozen contract and full-time govt doctors 
MMA president said not surprised to hear about possible strike
healthcare system and human resources “stretched to its limits” for years

My Comments:

There are many aspects to the problems in our healthcare system. 

1. The monopoly over supplies of medicines and hospital products by one UMNO company for decades is among them. Government hospitals now prescribe and give out many generic medicines which are cheaper to buy (for the monopoly supplier - thus generating more profits for them) but generic medicines are less effective. Some people say generic brands have only 70% - 80% of the effectiveness of branded medicines.

How do we solve this problem of the monopoli cekik darah ? Just open the market - the Ministry of Health should buy medicines from the open market. Because you buy in bulk, you may be able to get better quality, branded medicine at cheaper prices. Patient recovery may be better and put less stress on our doctors and nurses.

This is baggage from the Zaman Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun. Get rid of those policies.

2. Equipment in our hospitals have broken down and have been breaking down. Even the condition of some of our hospitals  are in need of serious repair. But the gomen has no money. Or does the money allocated for renovations and repairs of hospitals become puffs of cigar smoke. Duit rakyat jadi asap. 

Again all this is leftover from the Zaman Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun. You have to really change these old ways. Sudah lapuk lah. Now the doctors and nurses are already threatening to strike. 

Hello Menteri Kesihatan, your job is so easy. Just blame everything on the Dasar Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun. And then change the dasar. Problem solved.

If you do not change the Dasar Zaman Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun your life will get more difficult - like having to handle these threats of doctors and nurses going on strike. 

3. Not enough doctors in our hospitals. 

In 2021 the Health Minister then said :

• number of local medical grads below Health Ministry's requirements
• much lower than Health Ministry's target of 4,000 doctors yearly
• 2020 only 2,967 local medical grads
• of 2,967 medical grads, 958 from public univ, 2,009 from private univ

• Health Ministry target 1:400 ratio doctors to population by 2025
• To achieve this ratio, we need 4,000 medical grads per year
• output of local medical grads is below Health Ministry's requirement

My Comments : Ok this statement is not 100% accurate. Or honest. Remember that was during Zaman Dasar Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun.

Large majority of medical grads from government universities are Malay / bumis.
Large majority of medical grads from private universities are non Malays.

So the ketuanan fellows, who always make everything a racial matter, find this difficult to handle.

Hence the problem of not having enough jobs for graduate doctors in government hospitals (as Houseman, as permanent Medical Officers etc). And the still unresolved issue of contract doctors.  

In a country where there is still a shortage of doctors !! Macam mana pula?

But the previous Health Minister deliberately ignored mentioning young Malaysian doctors who graduate from foreign universities overseas - Ukraine, Russia, India, Indonesia etc. The large majority of these graduates are non-Malay. 

As you can see for yourself the previous Health Minister did not even mention or include these foreign graduates in her statistics. As though they do not exist. Just because of their race? Nauzubillah.

The Dasar Zaman Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun put a racial quota on the intake of bumi vs non-bumi medical students in our government universities. So the non-bumis have no choice but to pay a lot of money to study in private medical universities or study medicine overseas.

Then after they graduate there are more restrictions on them getting housemanship positions and permanent jobs as medical officers in the government hospitals. All these are the leftovers from the Dasar Zaman Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun.

Lets cut the story short. Pendekkan cerita-lah. Pendek kata now the government health service is breaking down. There are NOT ENOUGH doctors in the government health service and now the government health workers are planning a strike.  

What can I say except -  padan muka. 

And then what did the government do to overcome the shortage? They went and hired foreign doctors from all sorts of countries (including from those 'stan countries) to come and work in our hospitals. Isnt that stupid? 

Because of the shortage, doctors in our government hospitals are also put "on call" - this means they have to work 36 hours straight. To me this is very risky.  Even bus drivers and lorry drivers are not allowed to work more than a certain number of hours per day. Doctors are also human beings. How can they work 36 hours at a stretch? There was a real case of a doctor who fell asleep while driving home after a 36 hour shift and crashed into another car. I am wondering - what about the last patient operated on by that doctor towards the end of that 36 hour shift?

So these problems have been inherited from the Zaman Dasar Mahazalim dan Mahafiraun. It is so easy to overcome these problems.  Just get rid of these unworkable policies. They are causing real problems. Now the health service wants to go on strike.

Allow all our qualifying young people to study medicine in our government universities. Drop those racial quotas. Take in all our young Malaysian medical graduates (from government universities, private local universities, foreign universities etc) as housemen and medical officers into the government hospitals.

There are still not enough doctors in the country. And certainly not enough doctors in the government health services. But there are thousands of young Malaysians graduating as doctors every year - from many places. 

We have enough of resources in this country. Especially human resources.  Please be professional and intelligent and we can solve all our problems.

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.