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'Health DG, housemen ARE overworked'
Published:  Jan 27, 2010 7:57 AM
Updated: Jan 27, 2010 12:00 AM

your say 'I have seen housemen clinging onto the railings as they walk up the floors of a general hospital. They are overworked and exhausted.'

'Housemen not overworked in hospitals'

Jeffrey Yew: Health Ministry director-general Dr Ismail Merican is a superb doctor in his own right, but as an administrator and director, he does not know what he is doing.

Being overworked is not just a measure of workload. The amount of hours logged can also be exhausting. Have you heard of anyone in the free world working 36 hours in one go without a decent break? Without even time for proper meals? That's the life of a houseman.

Ooi Siew Geok: Dr Ismail may be talking about a specific hospital at a specific time, or in reference to a particular batch of housemen. However, most housemen are so overworked and tired that they cannot do anything else other than going to sleep upon reaching home.

How are they going to learn to become a good doctors if they cannot spent time reading up on books or surf the Internet to improve their knowledge? I suggest he spend more time going around the hospitals and talking to the housemen to find out for himself the true picture.

Rasool Khan: Housemen are overworked. They start work very early, around 6.30am, and only finish at 11pm. That's about 16.5 hours a day. With such working hours, they hardly have time to enhance their knowledge. The system has to be revamped for the betterment of everyone.

Thinking Aloud: The DG has not cited any factual studies on housemen and their work. Get the data and show it. How many housemen has he spoken to in order to find out how they really feel about their work?

I have seen housemen clinging onto the railings as they walk up the floors of the Ipoh General Hospital. They are overworked and exhausted.

Kanasai: The more the DG talks, the more suspicious I get. Take actions and solve the problem now instead of giving excuses.

On one hand, he says, housemen are not overworked (but have complaints). On the other hand, we have a shortage of doctors in Sabah, Sarawak and Pahang. We can expect that by 2015, the ratio of doctors to people will be 1:600.

Cheah Thean Charn: "A lot of government doctors and specialists are staying on because of faster promotions, better career development and perks with the civil service," said Dr Ismail.

That is not true. Most doctors only continue in government service because that's the only way they can be sanctioned to be specialists. Coming out as an medical officer (MO) to be a general practitioner would mean that you will never be a specialist.

My wife met the director-in-charge of house officer (HO) placements in Putrajaya a year back, and complained to him of bad working hours. Thinking that HOs work only five days a week, he was surprised when told that, in reality, they actually work seven days a week.

Such doctors would thus not have much time left to go for locums (someone who temporarily takes the place of another). Not to mention the fact that the big-shot doctors have those slots allocated for themselves, the crux of the issue is basic pay.

Pemerhati: Dr Ismail claims that "if you go to a surgical ward, there will be 20 housemen floating around, and they will be fighting to do an appendicectomy".

By this remark, he has inadvertently shown us the administrative mess the whole Health Ministry is under his charge. No houseman who is thinking of his long-term future is going to complain and risk becoming marked as a trouble-maker.

If the director-general is genuinely interested in improving the working conditions of medical staff and provide a good service, they should study and act on all complaints instead of giving silly excuses. There may be many more doctors in the future, but their quality may be suspect.

For political reasons, standards for admission and graduation have been drastically lowered locally. We also have students graduating as doctors from foreign universities that have dubious reputation.

Sarao: Dr Ismail, please turun padang (go to the ground) first. And include Taiping Hospital as part of your programme. Look into the situation of bullying and high handedness by senior doctors and specialists.

MorningSun: The main problem with our present government is that its ministries are filled with opportunist politicians, while there is a serious lack of professional specialists. There is no planning or proper supervision. The top persons are there for show, making noise and creating chaos. Many ministries are in a mess.

The Health Ministry is no different. The health minister is so busy playing politics. He's not a medical specialist, he's a politician.


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