By RAGANANTHINI VETHASALAM
PETALING JAYA: Five years after the Covid-19 pandemic and nearly a decade since the introduction of the contract system, some public healthcare facilities continue to grapple with chronic manpower shortages and long wait times for treatment.
Patients at government facilities can face wait times of up to six hours, with doctors at understaffed clinics sometimes seeing between 80 and 100 patients in a single day.
An orthopaedic surgeon at a government hospital said the ideal wait time for patients should be around 60 minutes.
“My clinic has about six or seven doctors managing around 120 to 130 patients daily,” he said.
“While some orthopaedic cases with straightforward diagnoses can be handled within five to 10 minutes, the standard consultation takes about 15 minutes per patient. In contrast, psychiatric consultations may require up to 30 minutes, meaning doctors in that field typically see only six to seven patients per day. Ideally, an orthopaedic doctor should be seeing 15 to 20 patients daily,” he added.
A recent viral social media post highlighted the issue, with a patient claiming she had registered at Hospital Kuala Lumpur’s orthopaedic clinic at 9am but only completed treatment by 3pm.
The post included a photo of a notice that read: “There aren’t many doctors. The waiting time to see a doctor will be more than six hours.”
Another doctor serving in a rural clinic said patient loads could reach up to 80 a day per doctor.
“We are severely understaffed. We’re constantly waiting for more doctors to be posted here,” said the doctor, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to civil service restrictions on public statements.
“Things haven’t improved much since the Covid-19 pandemic. Manpower remains a critical issue. It’s time to abolish the contract system or we’ll never be able to resolve the shortage.”
According to projections released in 2023 by Dr Hirman Ismail, deputy director of the Health Ministry’s medical development division, the public healthcare sector would require 63,040 doctors by 2025 and 79,931 by 2030.
As of last year, there were nearly 52,000 doctors employed in government service.
Data from the Statistics Department indicates that the national population is expected to reach 36 million in 2025 and 38 million by 2030.
Based on the recommended doctor-to-population ratio, Malaysia would require 90,057 active doctors in 2025 and 114,187 by 2030.
It was further projected that 30% of the doctors in public service should be specialists, translating to 18,912 and 23,979 specialists needed in 2025 and 2030 respectively.
However, as of last year, only around 8,000 specialists were serving in the public sector.
The ministry had targeted a ratio of 2.5 doctors per 1,000 population by 2025 and 3.0 per 1,000 by 2030, equivalent to one doctor for every 400 people by 2025 and one for every 330 people by 2030.
Sarawak Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Dr Sim Kui Hian said on July 12 that the state would need about 6,000 doctors by 2025, but currently has only 4,000.
The contract system, introduced nearly a decade ago, continues to be blamed for the manpower crisis, as not all doctors under contract are absorbed into permanent positions. The country is also contending with a growing brain drain in the medical field.
On July 5, Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said that a plan to reduce excessive wait times at government hospitals is in the final stages of development.
He noted that efforts to address the issue had been ongoing even before he assumed office.
To its credit, the ministry has taken steps to ease the situation, including diverting non-critical cases to health clinics to decongest emergency departments, and reducing wait times at health clinics from three hours to 30 minutes.
Source: hospitals-still-short-of-doctors