Health Ministry may extend moratorium on new medical programmes

KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Health is looking to extend the five year moratorium imposed by the government in 2011 on new medical programmes in the country.
Its director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the extension would probably be for another five years and would include all institutions of higher education offering such courses.
"We are forced to do this in view of the large number of trainee doctors in the country. Instead of producing new doctors, we will encourage existing medical colleges to emphasis on quality," he said when contacted.
Currently, he said there were doctors coming from 32 local institutions, while more than 360 medical programmes were offered in 36 countries Sri Lanka, Iraq, Russia, Myanmar, Czech Republic and Ukraine.
"Of the 4,140 medical graduates employed as house officers in 2015, 2,195 were from local universities while the remaining 1,945 from foreign universities," he said, adding there were a total 4,991 graduates reporting for duty as housemen in 2013, 3,860 in 2014 and 4,140 last year.
There were 3,564 in 2011, and 3,743 in 2012.
"Each year, the Public Service Commission appoints between 3,500 and 5,000 medical graduates into the service and on average, the accumulative number in Year 1 and Year 2 of training is between 9,500 and 10,300 HOs," said Dr Noor Hisham.
He said there were currently 10,835 house officer (HO) positions in 44 government hospitals nationwide.
He also said the ministry was working towards producing more trained specialists doctors as many had left for the private sector.
Dr Noor Hisham, who is also the Malaysian Medical Council's (MMC) president, said the ministry had increased the number of hospitals providing housemanship training from 38 in 2009 to 44 hospitals in 2015.
He said there were the 46,916 registered doctors in 2014, with a doctor to population ratio of 1:633, which the government plans to bring down to 1:400 by 2020.