The Health Ministry is aiming to solve the glut of medical graduates and new nurses who have yet to get placement in government hospitals.

Health Minister Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said the glut was due to an increase in medical graduates from local and foreign institutions.

“The second reason is that the ministry was implementing the human resource optimisation policy which means there will be no additional new posts offered but on a trade-off or redeployment,” he said in an exclusive interview with Bernama here recently.

Dzulkefly said the ministry was aware of the issue and to overcome it, the ministry had taken certain measures.

First is to change the method of appointment, from permanent to contract appointment, in which the officer has the opportunity to undergo housemanship and obtain full registration as required under the Medical Act 1971 to improve the clinical skills and experience of officers.

It will also enforce a moratorium on medical programmes with the cooperation of the Education Ministry up to April 30, 2021 with the aim of imposing quota on medical graduates by universities in the country. The original period was for five years from May 1, 2011 to April 30 2016 and it has been extended to April 30, 2021.

He said under the moratorium, there would be no new medical programmes at degree level and no increase in the quota of medical student intake.      

However, the ministry will not be able to control the intake or medical graduates coming out of foreign universities.

“Apart from that, the ministry had increased the training slots for graduates from 10,835 to 11, 706 through additional graduate training hospitals. The ministry had increased the number of graduate training hospitals from 38 in 2009 to 47 hospitals now,” he said.

It covers 44 hospitals under the ministry and three teaching hospital (Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre and Universiti Malaya Medical Centre) in 2018.

Other measures taken included increasing the number of graduate training postings.

"Several new postings had been introduced in stages to increase training slots and placements of graduates in anaesthesia, emergency services, psychiatric and premier health departments.

Dzulkefly said the ministry would continue to recruit Grade UD41 medical officers in phases under contract every two months, depending on the vacancies of training slots

On the issue of graduate nurses who have yet to receive placement in government hospitals, he said the ministry had reduced the number of nurse trainees from 2,274 in 2016 to 1,742 in 2018.

Apart from that, the ministry will also appeal for special approval from the Public Service Department (JPA) to increase the number of permanent posts, or to allow the ministry appoint graduate nurses from Health Ministry training institutes on contract. 

- Bernama