KUALA LUMPUR: A total of 6,985 medical specialists, 52,666 medical officers and 69,608 nurses are working at the government healthcare facilities up to Dec 31, last year.
Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said the ministry had seen improvements on the number of healthcare staff in both the public and private sectors, with a ratio of 1:420 medical officer to patient in 2021, compared to 1:554 in 2017.
Meanwhile, the nurse to patient ratio in Malaysia stood at 1:283 in 2021 compared to 1:302 in 2017, she said.
"The Health Ministry is carrying out various initiatives to increase the number of medical officers at government hospitals.
"Apart from improving the health service delivery, this is in line with the target set under the 12th Malaysia Plan, one medical officer to 400 patients ratio by 2025," she said in a parliamentary reply to a question from Yeo Bee Yin (PH-Puchong).
Dr Zaliha said the government had introduced various incentives by among others, expediting appointments of medical graduates on contract basis without having to go through interview process with the Public Services Commission, increasing undergrad training slots at the Health Ministry from 10,835 in 2013 to 12,228 in 2022, encouraging medical officers to further studies in specialist programmes and enhancing specialist training to produce more medical specialists through parallel pathway.
She said some retired specialists were also re-hired on a needs basis, especially in critical fields, while the ministry also encouraged Malaysian talents serving abroad to return home.
"For the nurse services scheme at the Health Ministry, the vacancy of posts is filled based on the number of nurses produced by the ministry's training centres nationwide.
"The ministry also implements contract-based appointment for nurses to fulfil urgent needs at critical healthcare facilities," Dr Zaliha said, adding that there were 2,336 contract nurses working at the ministry up to Dec 31, last year.
