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

The director-general of health Dr Ismail Merican has denied that housemen serving government hospitals are not overworked and in says in some departments there are already too many housemen.

I know for a fact that at the Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL) the housemen are expected to work seven  days per week comprising five days of 12-hour days and two days of a 36 hour continuous stretch all totalling about 110 hours per week.

The average working week for all Malaysians is 40 hours per week and the labour laws allow up to 48 hours per week. So a houseman works up to three times more than a normal Malaysian.

When a houseman is on call, he is paid RM100 for 24 hours of work (the other 12 hours is already paid as salary) which is just above RM4 per hour which is a pitiful amount to pay a professional who has to forgo his sleep, family and social life.

Which branch in government service be it nursing, the military, the police, PTD officers, etc have to work such long hours in such a demanding working environment? Housemen have to deal with many sick patients some of whom are alcoholics and drug addicts.

There are also emergencies and trauma patients, etc. No doubt this environment is to be expected in a hospital but coupled with  the crazy hours, being always on their feet, the irregular meal times and the low income, I doubt many people will last long as housemen.

The housemanship for these young doctors is two years and during this period they are not allowed to take medical leave-  if they fall sick, the leave taken will be deducted from their annual leave. Meanwhile, annual leave can be applied for but there is no assurance that it will be approved.

The DG has mentioned that no housemen has complained to him about being overworked and he also highlighted  that during his service as a houseman, there were no complaints. I am appalled that the DG has feigned ignorance of the unacceptable working conditions of housemen in our government hospitals.

These housemen are the frontliners and without them many hospitals would not be able to function properly. Any parent with a son or daughter as a houseman can tell you the suffering that their child is going through.

In fact, during this two-year housemanship, their life is almost non-existent as all they want to do after work is to go to sleep. In fact, some of them have become withdrawn and suffer from depression and anxiety.

There must be a better way of duty roster-ing the housemen. For example, in Australia, housemen work about 40 hours per week and their duty roster comprises of permanent work shifts for each  houseman.

I hope the health DG will quickly start finding solutions to this perennial problem instead of saying that there is no problem at all.