PETALING JAYA: Housemen have to wait for several months before they are given a medical officer (MO) post at public hospitals, sources claimed.
However, even after getting the post, some are allegedly still being paid their houseman salaries.
And one source even claimed that no more new medical officer posts were being created at public hospitals.
Confirming this, Malaysian Medics International chairman S.S. Vikkineshwaran said he knew of two cases in which the housemen had to wait for four months before getting their posts.
“By the fifth posting in a hospital department (after one-and-a-half years as houseman), the housemen will apply for an MO post and by the sixth posting, they’ll know where they will be based.
“But there are instances where some do not know,” he said, adding that the two housemen had to write letters to the relevant authorities.
Housemen go through six postings to be trained in six disciplines of medicine during their two-year housemanship.
Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president Dr John Chew said its standing committee for house officers and medical officers had not received such complaints.
Although the ministry was still able to promote housemen to medical officers, Dr Chew said the MO posts were becoming limited, adding that this was getting to be a concern.
In an immediate reaction, Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said they were coming up with a solution soon.
“We are waiting for the new positions from the Public Service Department (PSD),” he added.
Deputy Health director-general Datuk Dr S. Jeyaindran said more posts had been created following the high number of housemen and the increasing work load and expansion of services in public hospitals.
Currently, there are around 16,000 MO posts, he said, adding that the ministry had just under 10,000 housemen.
“Some 350 to 400 housemen become MOs every month,” he said.
Due to the high volume of applications, he said housemen should apply for MO posts in their fifth posting, but many applied only upon completing their housemanship.
“It takes at least four months to get their applications processed. It is a bigger problem now because there are more of them and we need more time to process and submit the applications to PSD,” Dr Jeyaindran said.
He added that some did not provide all the documents needed while others did not want to be posted to Sabah and Sarawak.
It also required time for their salaries to be upgraded and adjusted, added Dr Jeyaindran, but assured that these would be backdated.
“As of now, the ministry is not limiting the MO posts but it will need to limit the number in government service in the future when it has enough MOs,” he added.