PETALING JAYA: Each year, Universiti Malaya (UM) loses at least 30 of its best and brightest to Singapore, says Prof Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman(pic).
The renowned infectious disease expert said the problem is here to stay if the serious health care workers' issues in Malaysia affecting doctors, nurses and allied health professionals are not addressed.
Dr Adeeba, who is a Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Universiti Malaya's Medical Faculty, said the lack of posts and clear training pathways has caused doctors, nurses and allied health professionals to look abroad for employment or better opportunities.
"We will continue to have this problem until we are serious about addressing the health care workers' issues in Malaysia.
"For a start, we can look at urgently plugging the brain drain of fresh medical graduates and medical officers (MO) because of the lack of posts and clear training pathways.
"Each year, UM loses at least 30 of our best and brightest to Singapore and now we are also apparently going to help plug the National Health Service (NHS) shortage (in the United Kingdom) by also sending our MOs to the UK," she said in a tweet on Thursday (Dec 22).
However, Dr Adeeba said she understands why those in the medical industry do so.
"I don't blame my young colleagues at all. I would go where the opportunities are too. We are failing them.
"How can we expect to build a resilient and world-class health system when we have this continuous internal and external brain drain?" she asked.
She was responding to an article by a health news portal on how hospitals should not leave it to emergency departments alone to handle patients.
The article quoted an emergency medicine doctor from a public hospital in the Klang Valley who called for collective plans across departments for treatment on patients to start when they enter the emergency room.
In August 2022, former health minister Khairy Jamaluddin announced that applications for permanent positions for 4,053 healthcare workers in the public service had been approved.
He said the number of approvals was the highest since the contract position model was introduced in 2016.
The approved applications consist of 3,215 medical officers, 438 dental officers, 400 pharmacists and the remaining 225 are reserved.
Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said she would turn to Pakatan Harapan's manifesto to work on reforming healthcare services and also look into placements for contract doctors.
because of a lack of posts and clear training pathways. Each year UM loses at least 30 of our best & brightest to SG (remember, it costs us almost RM1mil per student to train ya) and now we are also apparently going to help plug the NHS shortage by also sending our MOs to UK
— Adeeba Kamarulzaman (@ProfAdeeba) December 22, 2022
