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'We have to beg our patients to urinate'

I refer to the Malaysiakini report 'Housemen not over-worked in hospitals' .

I am a house officer working at a state general hospital. I thank your readers for all the responses and comments. We really feel appreciated. Many, or shall I say, all the responses were against our health director-general.

I would like to emphasise here that this is not a housemen vs DG issue. It’s about understanding a houseman’s life. Our DG gave his view based on the feedback he gets. And I believe it;s true that until now he has yet to receive any formal complaint from a houseman or even an ex-houseman who is still in government service.

Why? One obvious reason, it is the PTK . Our yearly ‘penilaian tahap kecekapan’ is signed by our head of department, verified by the hospital’s director Pengarah and evaluated by the ministry. So I don’t think any government service doctors who are in their right mind will ever lodge a formal complaint.

I do appreciate my DG’s call to us , saying that we can always come to him on any problem. But Tan Sri, I daresay you will never will hear anything from us. That’s the reason I am writing this letter anonymously to Malaysiakini.com.

Now let’s have a look at the issue. Are housemen overworked? I will pen down my view as a house officer, and let you judge. As a houseman, we start our day at work at 6.30 or 7am. And we thereafter have no breakfast or lunch break. At some hospitals, housemen shouldn’t be seen at the hospital canteens.

As a health service provider, Malaysian government hospitals give top class service. We will see our patients three times a day via our official ‘rounds’. Meaning we will be following and presenting our patients to our bosses three times a day. First at 8am, then 3pm and 8pm.

And its our responsibility to know our patients well prior to the official rounds and to get all the necessary ‘jobs’ done after the official rounds and be prepared with everything for the next round. We even need to beg our patients to pass urine, bottle it, run to the lab and get the results printed. Don’t be shocked, but this is what we are doing and are expected to do.

So we will be done with our work earliest by 6pm in some of the departments. But there are some departments which still demand us to work till 12 midnight. Personally, I don’t complain about this because I and many others take this as an opportunity given to us to learn.

But trust me - not many can bear this pressure and they break down. And many fail to give their optimal service to their patient due to exhaustion.

As for the on call scenario, life starts as usual at 6.30am and we will perform our routine responsibilities in addition to fulfilling our on-call duties. This goes on until 7am the next day. And after that, we have to carry on with our normal routines that most of the time extend even until 11 or 12 pm. That is more then 40 hours.

Of course, we get ourselves cleaned, fed and maybe shut our eyes for an hour or so with the mercy of our fellow housemen. But this is ‘off the record’ and if we ever get caught, we can be considered as ‘ponteng’ and can be disciplined  for that. At least a warning letter or a public humiliation by our bosses.

And for all this, what do we get in return?

• Much lesser pay compared to our counterparts in other countries.

 

• No weekends off.

• No medical leave. In some departments we must go to work as usual even if we are sick and get ourselves examined by our bosses before getting permission for an MC. Not to mention the hours we have to wait for them.

• Being humiliated by our bosses in front of our patients.

• Getting our tenures extended for three  months for minor misdeeds

• Running around doing ‘other’ people’s work. Like those os the ward attendants, staff nurses etc. This because at end of the day, we will be blamed and only we will be blamed if things are not done.

I am writing this letter after 42 straight hours of work, without any sleep and only one meal.

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