KUALA LUMPUR – More than 50% of government doctors who quit public service received better offers from the private sector, the health minister told the Dewan Rakyat today in acknowledging the need for measures to retain doctors in the civil service.
Datuk Seri Dzulkefly Ahmad (Kuala Selangor-PH) said that a 2022 study found that out of the 100,696 medical officers who have quit the public sector, 54% were due to better offers by the private sector.
Other resignations were for personal reasons (28%), offers from public higher-learning institutions (6%), overseas job offers (4.5%), further studies (2.7%), opening their own practice (0.8%), while 0.5% did not state any reason, the same study found.
“The pattern is almost the same (every year). We (the Health Ministry) are aware of this and we will work hard to ensure that we do not lose our human capital in our public healthcare sector.
“That is why we are offering lucrative incentives that are considered not low,” he said during the question-and-answer session at the Dewan Rakyat today.
Dzulkefly was answering a supplementary question by Fong Kui Lun (Bukit Bintang-PH) on the number of medical personnel who had quit working in the public sector and their reasons for leaving.
Earlier, Dzulkefly said the starting salary for medical officers of Grade UD41 is RM5,197, higher than the rate for other public service schemes.
Secondly, he said, the ministry is increasing the number of permanent posts for medical officers under contract. A total of 9,822 have received permanent employment offers from 2019 to 2023, and 6,000 more will be offered from 2024 to 2025.
The ministry is currently providing several incentives and allowances for its healthcare personnel.
Among them are on-call allowances for medical officers, currently at RM200 to RM250 for active calls, and RM80 to RM130 for passive calls.
For specialists, the on-call allowance is RM230 to RM250 for active calls, and RM100 to RM160 for passive calls.
Medical officers at outpatient treatment clinics, hospital emergency departments, or public health clinics (outside of working hours) are offered an extended-hours service allowance of RM80 an hour.
Earlier, Datuk Dr Alias Razak (Kuala Nerus-PN) had asked about the ministry’s effort to ensure medical graduates would continue working in the public sector in view of the government’s plans to abolish the pension scheme beginning in 2025 for incoming civil servants.
To this, Dzulkefly said it was too early to make presumptions about the pension scheme as it is still being refined and its details have yet to be announced.
“We don’t know if the pension system is going to be better (than the current one) so it would be very presumptive for us to assume that it would affect the healthcare personnel in the public sector,” he said.
He added that the ministry is currently working on strengthening public-private collaboration, which may allow medical personnel to work in both sectors. – February 28, 2024