THE Government should be applauded for finally resolving to take positive action with regards to oversupply of doctors.

The Ministries of Education and Health constantly referred to an advisory that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had mandated that for a country to attain developed status, it should have one doctor per 400 population.

The Government’s position was Malaysia was far from reaching those figures and thus needed more doctors. WHO finally burst the bubble by saying that it had never came up with those figures.

The oversupply of doctors was due to the mushrooming of private medical colleges; almost 30 colleges over the last decade.

With each private medical college having an average of 100 admissions annually, it meant, that the private sector was producing 4,000 doctors.

Almost another 1,000 were returning from abroad. These figures exclude those graduating from public universities in Malaysia.

The Government allowed private medical colleges to mushroom freely.

It made it easy for them to get candidates, by lowering the entry standards to five B4 credits in the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia.

According to the Health Ministry, in 2012, there were 2,500 doctors employed by the Public Service Department, who did not have the minimum standards as mandated by the Education Ministry for entry into medical college.

Entry into public universities was only for students with straight As. The only sector where the public sector outshone the private sector by miles is the entry standards and education provided by public medical universities.

Private medical college admissions in Malaysia are based on capitation fees of between RM300,000 and RM1.5mil.

This was out of reach of poor students, whose only option was public universities. Furthermore, admission is strictly based on academic excellence.

It is easy for anyone with money to start a medical college in Malaysia as a profitable business venture. They are not required to build hospitals for teaching.

They have a ready market of candidates, with low qualifying standards which also can be circumvented. A few of the medical colleges do not have the necessary infrastructure, teachers and other facilities to provide reasonable medical training.

The oversupply of doctors is compounded by the fact that there are only 42 accredited hospitals for training doctors, leaving no avenue to absorb the oversupply.

The Government has been toying with the idea of dispensing with the two additional years of compulsory service as medical officers after completing the two-year training as housemen.

This would be a disaster for private healthcare. The quality of doctors being spun out of the system has been called into question. Imagine the catastrophe if insufficiently trained doctors are allowed to treat patients.

While we should applaud the Government’s move to curb the numbers entering medical colleges, it certainly must not be directed at public universities only.

A few colleges in the private sector are facing administrative and financial problems. The Government should step in to monitor these colleges.

The Malaysian Medical Council should be given powers to close down or suspend poorly performing medical colleges. The entry requirements must be raised. While some of the private medical colleges have excellent facilities, many others are mediocre.

Admission standards for private medical universities must be on par with public universities. Medicine should be for those who are academically inclined with good grades.

With the oversupply of doctors, private universities should be made to reduce their intake gradually and be allowed only to admit not more than 50 students a year.

Those not able to function efficiently should merge with the others. Proper infrastructure, adequate teaching staff, sufficient training modules should be seriously addressed.

Most importantly, all medical colleges must be required to build their own hospital for training purposes. These hospitals would be useful for providing jobs for those who graduate as doctors from these colleges.

Medicine which was reputable till a decade ago has been downgraded into a pure business venture to cater for “enterprising” businessmen who need to spread their wings, to fill their coffers. This should not be so.

Reducing the admissions into public universities will only contribute to the deteriorating standards of medical education. It should be quality and not quantity.

Unless strong measures are taken immediately, Malaysia will have doctors working as salesmen and taxi drivers like in many in Third World countries.

Source: The Star