Letters
by mnoria
Big Napoleons in MOH acting like mafia warlords to sabotage the Health Ministry’s official announcements
I hope the Malaysian public have not forgotten the plight of House Officers or young trainee doctors:
1. Forced to work non-stop 36 hours, on-call duty for 24 hours and need to continue with another 12-hour regular, routine duties.
2. Extension of the period of their houseman-ship into two-years from the previous one year only.
The voices of grouses and protests died down totally after:
1. Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai announced that trainee doctors would now get a day off after carrying out their 24-hour on-call duty.
2. Health Ministry director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican announced an automatic promotion to grade UD44 upon completion of their two-year houseman-ship.
Please refer to the following two news reports from the Star newspapers for the details:
1. The Star, 18th. December 2008, Thursday, reported
Day off after 24-hour duty for trainee doctors
2. Promotions for house officers in govt hospitals
By IZATUN SHARI in The Stars.
But the situation of the trainee doctors on the ground in the hospitals around Malaysia is totally different. There seems to have a hidden black hand of the Big Napoleons in MOH destroying and acting the true spirit and intentions of those announcements. They are acting like powerful local mafia warlords to sabotage the Health Ministry’s top two officers’ public announcements.
House Officers are discouraged from resting after 24-hr duty by forcing the following regulations:
1. If rest after 24-hr duty, RM100.00 overtime fees are forfeited. Because they rest the following day after the 24-hr duty, they are not entitled for the overtime they already worked. Their 16-hr over time just disappeared because they choose to rest the following 8-hr duty.
(Yes, we all know that HOs are forced to work 12-hr every day without any overtime payment. We all accepted this as part of our training but anyway our normal working hours must be 8-hr only. We are not complaining about this minor thing.)
2. If always choose to rest after 24-hr duty; the HO got the punishment of extension for months for not fulfilling the expected length of working hours in the particular ward. And this irresponsible extension by the medical authorities had given much resentment amongst HOs and it also effected the other HOs who need to do more on-call duties because of disruption of roasters and schedules.
3. The prospect of getting the much hyped automatic promotion to grade UD44 upon completion of their two-year houseman-ship in 2010 by the house officers in government hospitals is also dashed by the revelations of the need to sit for the examinations, need applications and also subject to the scoring of marks given by superiors according to their performances.
So there is practically no improvement of the working conditions for the HOs at all and there is much discontents amongst them especially as they felt that MOH authorities were doing lip service or just twisting their tongues for political reasons only. If anyone tries to fight back, there is a danger of black listing and definite powerful revenge responses from the MOH authorities who are acting as big mafia gangsters.
The incoming new Cabinet should look into this kind of problems created by Big Napoleons, not only in the MOH but in almost every ministry, who always act like mafia war lords to sabotage the Government’s official announcements and policy guidelines.
Proper Rules and regulations are good but these should not degenerate into Bureaucratic Red tapes that would have a negative effect on the image of the government.
TQ
Mohd. Nor Ibrahim bin Abdullah
#1 by Onlooker Politics on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 1:36 pm
The Employment Act 1955 requires that no one employee shall be permitted to work overtime in exceeding of 104 hours in a month. Is the Employment Act applicable to medical profession?
I believe the Big Napolean in MOH will also need to have the hands-on knowledge on the Employment Act. Otherwise, there is no point for Malaysia to have a government ministry which is called the Ministry of Human Resources. Shall the Minister of Human Resources from MIC say something about this complaint? The JTK legal enforcement officers have been busy taking the non-compliant employers in the private sector to court for violating the Employment Act. I think the Minister of Human Resources shall also give instruction to his subordinates for taking the Big Napolean in MOH to court in order to uphold the rule of law!
#2 by frankyapp on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 1:48 pm
I hope brother yb LKS will read this comment.Sabah Likas Hospital is understaff,hardly any senior doctors are around,only trainee nurses and young interns doing their best, sometimes making wrong desicion due to inexperience or due to overwork load.What ever was the case, the health minister and the director of health should not just closed an eye. For instance,the women cancer section or wards, does not have a specialist,all radiotherapy ,etc must be referred,then trasferred to the public medical centre in Luyang,a distance of about 5km for treatmets.The problem is sometime,certain young interns just order these poor sick and weak cancer patients without any reference to the medical centre specialist,upon arrival,are ask to return to the Likas Hospital to get the letter of reference. Now guys,you can see the difficulties and suffering these weaken cancer patients endured.The ambulane jampack,with faulty air con,uncomfortable seats,couple with traffic jams and most of the time,irregular schedule thus making all these weaken sick canser patients even worse.The main purpose of hospital is to give conform not making the patient’s condition worsen. The medical authority knows about this matter but just keep an eye closed. My goodness, how can our umno/bn top leaders treat these sick,humble and poor cancer patients like they do not care. What kind of care these top political guys especially Datuk Liow Tiong Lai has to say about these cruel treatment towards the Likas Hospital cancer patients,both male and females ?. This is just a tip of the iceberg as every sections of this hospital and other hospitals throughout the country are facing such horrific problems,particularly the patients . I sincerely pray and hope our top political leaders be they umno/bn or PR,please make a probe on these top problems,do something concrete,immediately lessen the suffering of these cancer patients and other patients in particular the Likas Hospital and other hospitals in general as soon as possible. We,the rakyat need your walk NOT talk.
#3 by taiking on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 2:11 pm
Useless complaining.
They have no ears and no eyes and no sentiments for anything except their own power and wealth.
So just vote pakatan.
#4 by cskok8 on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 4:08 pm
The MOH bought over the old Sabah Medical Centre building and renovated it for a total of almost half a billion ringgit. That money would have been better used to renovate the crumbling QEH which is now partially closed down. MOH is now renting ward, OT and other facilities from Sabah Medical Centre which were built / purchased with money from the sale of their old building.
Very good business transaction (for SMC)
#5 by Winston on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 5:16 pm
The fact that we are where we are today should be squarely placed on the shoulders of all those who are stupid enough to place their faith, any faith at all, on the UMNO/BN government.
Throughout all these latter years, have the government shown even a vestige of good governance?
Yet, there are fools, and damned fools at that, who put all this power in their hands.
These are the people who should be blamed!!!!!
#6 by monsterball on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 6:02 pm
You can forget about good governing from UMNO.
Since after 12th election…all they are interested is their own personal survivals…self interest under UMNO that must win every election……forever and ever……by hook or by crook.
#7 by Ramesh Laxman on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 9:06 pm
The problem is that you need higher qualification to enter Medical and Engineering Faculty than other Faculties. The adminstrators generally come from other Faculties. And ‘walla’ now you get the drift.
#8 by passerby on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 11:50 pm
Malaysia is a fcuked up country and is run by under qualified people who think that just because the universities have made it really simple for them to pass, they are now of world class standard!
When you have all these under qualified people running the the system and that’ why the country has not achieved to become a developed country after 50 years. Just look at the tiny dot Singapore which the umno despise, it is now a developed country and can the so-called umno’s “elite” repeat the same for malaysia. The mamak’s dream of making malaysia a developed country will be just a dream.
#9 by computation on Wednesday, 1 April 2009 - 11:54 pm
“Malaysia is a fcuked up country and is run by under qualified people who think that just because the universities have made it really simple for them to pass, they are now of world class standard! ”
passerby
oh yeah. also don’t forgot the chinese who think that
just because they get their degrees with honours
they are so fantastic. the standard has been so watered down.
#10 by raven77 on Thursday, 2 April 2009 - 12:37 am
Major problem in government hospitals are the HP6 specialists being churned out by the dozens from UKM and USM, UM…..
Overnight, half baked specialists running loose suddenly become bullies taking it easy while grinding MOs and HOs to do their bidding…..Merican the Snake…spent too much time going after private practitioners instead of paying attention to the hopeless standards in government hospitals. It’s not the RM1 that matters anymore. In this day and age patients are looking for quality care and smaller hospitals with personalised care….not the monster hospitals KKM has built out in the jungle that forever leak….
The healthcare battle in this country has been lost….it will soon be run by traditional medicine specialists. There are far too many restrictions for doctors to practice. This next two decades will see the premature deaths of many Malaysians because hypertension, diabetes and cardiac diseases have not been paid attention to. Everyone will be either stroking out or having heart attack
This nation now has the healthcare standards of Egypt and African nations..and all roads lead to the UMNO appointed DG…Merican, one very important reason the Badawi government failed. May the Lord strike him down for the unnecessary deaths of many loved ones….
#11 by Kathy on Thursday, 2 April 2009 - 7:26 am
Not only those working in the government hospitals suffer, in fact any Malaysians that need to use the government hospitals are facing the red tapes as well. Too many places to get permission just to see a specialist in the government hospital. Instead of wasting time and money running around, no wonder there are still many that would go to private healthcare providers to get treatment.
By the way, Minister of Health should explain why government hospitals cannot provide baby’s blood group as part of the test done? Even small private delivery centers can do so. Ain’t it suppose to be part and parcel of the whole delivery process???
Looks like they are trying to cut corners again……
#12 by mnoria on Sunday, 12 April 2009 - 1:02 pm
Most of the non-Malays who complaint about the alleged discriminations on them are unaware of reciprocal racial practices they are practicing on others.
It is true that there are ample proofs of child-abused victims perpetrating the same atrocities they had endured onto other children when they grew up. And most of the daughter-in-laws who were victims of abuse by their in-laws later grew up into tormentors of the spouses of their sons. Most of the education authorities also thought that fresher-student rigging is the normal acceptable process as it is universally done in every universities around the world. No wonder even the previous Minister of Health and some MOH authorities keep on saying that the young doctors working as House Officers must go through the similar torture-process of the long-hour-duties as they themselves were also trained in the same way when they were young.
This is a common knowledge that Chinese employers would treat their own race employees better than other races. In the UM/UMMC there are many Chinese Professors, consultants, lecturers who are usually proud, arrogant, and they used to look down on other races and usually showed their animosity on Muslims / Malay students, House Officers and Medical Officers.
They used to give favour to their own race in the class, in the ward, exams, drawing duty roasters etc. Although I am a Malay/Muslim I never like and took advantage of my status as a Bumiputra and sincerely believe that all the Malaysians must be treated equally and get the same privileges irrespective of their creed, race, religion etc.
But now I started to wonder where we would lead if we are not protected from those bigots in every field as we all know that they already have a more economic power, and if added with political and other power, the condition would be out of control if there is no proper protection mechanism for weaker races in our country.
We all, including who got the education and administrative power in UM/UMMC should be colour blind and practice meritocracy and should need to show the magnanimous fair and justice in dealing with all the races, instead of using the alleged past sufferings to get a revenge discrimination by adhering to the Code of Hammurabi.
“An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, will soon make the whole of population of our beloved country, Malaysia blind and toothless.
TQ
Dr. Nurul Ibrahim Bin Abdullah
#13 by carcinoma on Wednesday, 17 June 2009 - 8:17 pm
it is good thing to do some good for the house officer. they deserve a day off if they really have worked hard. but how many HOs are entitled for that post call day off? second Q, are all HOs deserve that? i have come across 30+ HOs in GHKL. one of the HOs even have the time to leave the ward after ward round and get herself sitting in a GP locum clinic. not forget to mention it was a normal working day. not only one such HO, i come to know from the HO pool it was a norm. any action taken? Of cos NO! they all are medical officers now with permanent registrations!
second, the new rule that the supervisors must obey is they are not allowed to scold the HOs in front of patients and nurses; sorry …to comment the HO would be correct word in the new circular letter. I have witnessed an incident, few doctors were busy saving a patient that just collapsed. but this HO jsut stood one side with arms cross infront of his chest. so, should the supervisor follow the order: “DO NOT COMMENT OR SCOLD THE POOOOOR…. HO” and hunting for extra help from doctors from other units? even the consultant that arrived had put on gloves and help us!
and how about HOs that were rude to patients? scolding the poor patients?
please do not pamper the HOs. do not make the situation worst! we have already enough ‘inappropriate” medical schools that produce bunch of inefficient and incompetent doctors. so MOH, please let the veteran doctors and strict heads of unit carry out their duty of teaching the new freshies. they will learn through the hard way when during HOs period but they will be the ones that feel confident and rethink and regrade their fierce bosses when they become medical officers.
ministry of health, ismail merican, why cant u guys conduct a study see how the head of units judge the new freshies now? please stop sitting in the office and think how to make yourselves popular by giving hard time to the supervisors. if u guys place incompetent dangerous and arogant HOs to take care of patients, just mark my words, they will DIE! definitely i wont send my family to a GH with HOs that are arrogant and cant take comments. For goodness sake, we are dealing with human lives not cadervals. doctors are not supposed to save lives not to try in error onto the poor patients. we are not guinea pigs. have mercy on us, please reconsider that we are human beings. please train the HOs in proper manner!