Apr 24, 2010

Docs not keen to return home

PUTRAJAYA: Efforts to lure home several hundred Malaysian doctors working overseas have met with lukewarm success, said Deputy Health Minister Datuk Rosnah Abd Rashid Shirlin.

The ministry had contacted the doctors but only a small number had responded to the call to return home.

“We will not lose heart. We have come up with several policies aimed at making the return offers more attractive.

“At the same time, we are working on ways to keep future doctors here,” Rosnah said at a press conference here yesterday.

She had earlier witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the ministry and Newcastle University of Medicine here for the utilisation of the Health Ministry’s facilities.

Rosnah said one way to keep future doctors here was to provide more places at local institutions of higher learning.

On the doctor-patient ratio, she said the figure last year stood at 1:905 compared to the 1:600 yardstick set by the United Nations.

She added that the ratio now was a vast improvement from the 1:1,400 in 2000.

However, Rosnah said it was not balanced as a majority of the doctors worked in big cities like Kuala Lumpur, where the ratio was 1:513; while other states such as Kelantan has a ratio of 1:2,003.

“It is even worse in Sabah where the ratio is 1:2,248, but we are working to balance it by posting new doctors to these areas.

“We have decided to implement a rotation system that requires doctors to serve there for a year,” she said.

“Unless there is a need to extend the posting, they can return after their term is up,” Rosnah added.