Doctor shortage partly due to imbalanced distribution: MOH

PARLIAMENT | The shortage of doctors at certain government hospitals was partly due to an imbalance of manpower distribution, said Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad.

Speaking in the Dewan Rakyat this morning, Dzulkefly (Harapan-Kuala Selangor) defended the country’s 1:412 doctor-population ratio as “reasonable”, but vowed to continue improving the numbers.

“As mentioned earlier, our doctor-population ratio has reached 412. In other words, if we are to compare apples to apples from the perspective of manpower, as an upper-middle-income economy, we have a quite reasonable number of doctors.

“However, I am looking into (improving) this through a thorough study on demand and supply, and another study by the World Bank.

“There are times when we come across burnout cases among doctors, which happened because of maldistribution of medical officers and specialists.

“This is what I am looking into now,” he said during the Minister’s Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat.

Improved doctor-population ratio

Dzulkefly was responding to a supplementary question by Sheikh Mohmed Puzi Sheikh Ali (BN-Pekan), who wanted to know the Health Ministry’s initiatives to address the shortage of healthcare workers in government health facilities.

Earlier, the minister told the Dewan Rakyat that Malaysia’s doctor-population ratio has improved from 1:758 in 2012 to 1:412 in 2022.

The Health Ministry aims to lower the ratio further to 1:400 by next year, he added.

Dzulkefly said the country’s doctor-population ratio has improved satisfactorily and compared it to other countries including Singapore (1:270), the UK (1:357), Australia (1:270), Thailand (1:1,111), and Indonesia (1:1,400).

According to the minister, initiatives to improve the number of doctors include increasing the slots for trainee doctors from 10,835 in 2012 to 12,198 this year.

He also called for all stakeholders to work together to encourage students to study medicine.

“The Health Ministry is also in the final stage of studying several new policy proposals regarding the hiring and deployment of ministry healthcare workers through a Human Resources Reformation programme, which we will announce in the near future,” he said.

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