A DAP MP today raised concerns as to whether future medical graduates will get enough placements in public hospitals as the number of graduates increase by the year, with no capacity increase in hospitals.

Kulai MP Teo Nie Ching ( right ) said that while there are 9,363 first year medical students for the year 2014, excluding Malaysians pursuing medicine overseas, the Health Ministry’s projection only expects 5,968 medical graduates for the year 2019, which is the year the current first year students will finish their courses.

“At the current trend, it seems that 40 percent or even 50 percent of them will end up not able to get a placement in our hospitals to be trainee doctors,” she said.

Teo said that this is a classic case of the “left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing”, as the Health Ministry and the Education Ministry are not working in tandem to solve the problem.

“The two ministers need to sit down and discuss how to solve the dilemma immediately,” she said.

“Or else the lack of coordination between Education Ministry and Health Ministry will definitely jeopardise the future of our medical students,” she added.