Doctor's Dilemma
Rigidity that kills medical services
The Sunday Column (June 20, 2004, NSTP
By Rose Ismail
This is the article published in the New Straits Time on June 20, 2004. It relates the dilemma of the Government doctors and it quote an open letter from a professor from the medical faculty UKM, written to the attention of our Prime Minister.
Abstract of the letter below:
“My husband & I are fair dinkum Malaysian doctors who returned as medical specialists back in 1982 after our medical training and after working abroad for some 13 years. He served as a lecturer & later professor in medicine, planned & administered the Hospital UKM whilst I first served in the Ministry of Health as a kidney specialist before joining the department of medicine in UKM.”
“We have each contributed much of our private time to serve in our respective professional societies & in setting up or strengthening national patients’ associations. We are among pioneers of both the undergraduate & postgraduate medical training programmes in our local universities as well as in paramedical training programmes.”
“More than all this is the satisfaction we have gain from research & interaction with trainees, housemen and colleagues & seeing the patients get better by the day keeps us going.”
“But all this has been soured by the way the Public Service Department (PSD) treats government doctors, nurses, paramedics & other health professionals. To them, we exist as mere statistics within a group much like the unskilled & semi-skilled staff in the civil service who work office hours, 8am to 4.30pm, with all the public holidays & alternate weekends off.”
“Although some minor improvements have occurred in recent years, inflation, long working hours, the near-absence of career advancement further training opportunities, the time-consuming & moral-deflating examinations (all of which are totally unrelated to patient care) have pushed doctors into a corner.”
“Is this a wonder there are fewer & fewer of us left? Is this a wonder that waiting lines are getting longer at government clinics & outpatients departments?”
“If no one fights for the medical profession, good doctors & nurses will move on to greener pastures, which is not to say that money is the motivating factor for all doctors, but they certainly ‘cannot live on chicken feed & self-gratification’ today.”
“The solutions are –
- to keep the doctors by giving equitable remuneration & training opportunities (rather than enticing a few to return at exorbitant salaries or recruiting expatriate doctors & paying them higher salaries),
- facilitate promotions based on professional merits & qualifications,
- remove red-tape & stumbling blocks (eg: SSM-PTK exam)."
IS THIS UNKNOWN TO THE SOCIETY AT LARGE INCLUDING THE MINISTERS?
IS THE PUBLIC SERVICE DEPARTMENT (PSD) THE CAUSE OF ALL THESE PROBLEMS?
IF SO, WHY IS IT THAT PSD HAD BEEN LEFT TO DICTATE THE CAREER OF ALL THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO SERVE THE GOVERNMENT?
IS THE MEDICAL SERVANTS THE ONLY PEOPLE WHO SUFFERED UNDER THE PSD INCOMPETENCY & FOLLY?
WHAT ABOUT THOSE OTHER GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS WHOSE OFFICERS ARE ALSO SUFFERING QUIETLY IN PAIN AND ANGUISH, SUCH AS JKR?
WILL THE GOVERNMENT CONTINUE TO LET PSD RUN-DOWN THE LIVES OF OTHERS WHO HAD SERVED THE NATION WITH THEIR UTMOST DEDICATION?
IS PSD THE god-CREATED BY THE GOVERNMENT TO RULE THE CIVIL SERVANTS?
CHANGE MANAGEMENT - CHANGE WHAT? CHANGE-MY-FOOT!
In his column, As I Wonder, Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Ahmad Bajunid of UNITAR, has this to add:
“The competitiveness of the country depends on the strength of its educational system, particularly it’s universities. Institutions must be able to match appropriate talents with the needs of the nation. To achieve such ends, the appointment of Professors, Deans, Vice Chancellors, Presidents & Rectors must be transparent and open to national talent search. It’s human resources must be dynamic, possess relevant knowledge, are entrepreneurial, creative & innovative, and have research as well as global networking abilities.”
“In truth, there is actually no way to sustain the expressed achievements of the nation & the claims to all kinds of leadership if there is no system to groom a highly knowledgeable, soundly competent, ethical generation of scholars and learners who will be the next generation of leaders.
This is about the creation of a national talent pool and succession planning in all fields of human activities.”
“The promise that Malaysia is a Center of Excellence must be made good, otherwise … the credibility of the nation will surely be eroded.
Malaysian society does not want to be a one that is offensively boastful, one whose talks do not match deeds.”
DEAR PAK-LAH & HIS INCOMPETENT MINISTERS, "TALKS MUST MATCH DEEDS!" CAKAP JANGAN TAK SERUPA BIKIN.
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