PETALING JAYA: A total of 1,778 contract medical officers have resigned from the civil service since 2017, The Malaysian Insight reports.
“There were 110 in 2017, 168 in 2018, 475 in 2019, 511 in 2020 and 514 between January to November 26 this year,” Deputy Health Minister (I) Datuk Dr Noor Azmi Ghazali (pix) told the Dewan Rakyat.
The portal cited several reasons for the resignations, including moving to private practice, personal reasons, serving in statutory bodies, undergoing further studies, emigrating overseas, opening their own clinics, and health reasons.
Noor Azmi was responding to a question by Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (Kuala Selangor-Pakatan Harapan) on the statistics of resignations among medical graduates by year and the reasons given.
It was reported that contract medical officers were tendering their resignation letters amidst the pandemic, citing burnout, a lack of career opportunities, overload and stress as Covid-19 patient load increases as the reasons for quitting.
