KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 28: The government will appoint another 6,000 medical officers to permanent positions throughout 2024 and 2025, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said, that between 2019 and 2023, the government had already appointed a total of 9,822 medical officers to permanent positions.
He said among the pull factors or initiatives implemented to ensure medical officers stay in the public sector is the setting of the starting salary for contract officers Grade UD41 at RM5,197, which is a significantly higher amount compared to other public service schemes.
“In addition, as on-call allowance for services rendered after office hours at clinics and hospital emergency departments, we give them RM80 per hour, and they usually work for three to four hours,” he said during Question Time today.
The minister said the government also provides incentives for specialised studies through facilities such as full-paid study leave with Federal Training Allowance and the Skill Training Programme.
At the same time, Dr Dzulkefly called on all quarters not to speculate on the government’s pension scheme, but to just wait for the findings of the review on the public service remuneration system to be announced.
He said this in reply to Datuk Dr Alias Razak (PN-Kuala Nerus) who wanted to know the government’s short-term and long-term plans to attract medical graduates to remain in the public healthcare sector following the proposal to abolish the civil servant pension scheme.
Meanwhile, Dr Dzulkefly said 1,696 medical officers have resigned from the Health Ministry in 2022.
“Among the reasons given for their resignation are being offered to work in the private sector or statutory bodies, personal reasons and health issues,” he said in reply to the supplementary question from Fong Kui Lun (PH-Bukit Bintang) who wanted to know the reasons government medical officers left the public sector.
— BERNAMA