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