Health Ministry director-general Noor Hisham Abdullah said the treatment of patients by doctors of the same gender is not a compulsory policy.

He said this in a Facebook posting after Deputy Health Minister Hilmi Yahaya yesterday said the government was considering to have only women doctors to assist in childbirth.

"The Health Ministry will consider and respect requests by women patients to be treated by women doctors if there are women doctors who are qualified with the skills in the said field and are on duty at the time.

"The same situation and condition applies to requests by male patients for male doctors.

"But this is not a compulsory policy and requires judgment depending on the situation, more so in medical emergencies where doctors, be it male or female, need to give immediate treatment especially if it concerns one's life," he said.

Yesterday, Hilmi said the government had yet to roll out an only-women policy for childbirths due to insufficient women doctors dealing in this field.

"There are more female doctors (than male doctors) in public service but not many female doctors are interested in obstetrics and gynaecology.

"So we have to wait until there are more trained female doctors in this line," he is reported as saying by Bernama.