I WAS compelled to write this letter after reading the news report ”Concern over exodus of medical grads” (The Star, May 4).
According to the report, the vice chancellor of UKM Prof Tan Sri Sharifah Hapsah was pleading with new medical graduates not to succumb to temptation of doing housemanship in Singapore without even first registering with the Malaysian Medical Council.
Without even asking for details from the dean of the Medical Faculty, Prof Datuk Dr Lokman Saim, I can safely assume that all 20 of those fresh graduates being poached to do housemanship in Singapore were non-Malays.
Apparently, there was another group of students at Universiti Malaya Medical Faculty opting to go to Singapore to do their housemanship and forgoing the prospect of ever practising in Malaysia.
I can also safely assume that these students were the cream of the crop, otherwise Singapore would not have bothered.
Such is the state of our country that new medical graduates have no confidence that they will be treated fairly even after graduation. They are afraid of missing out on post-graduate training. The salary issue is definitely not the main reason why they decided to leave. Even privately funded medical students studying overseas and government medical scholars are looking for reasons not to come home.
I urge Prof Sharifah to institute meritocracy in every part of her university in order to maintain standards. Prestige of our post-graduate medical training programmes have deteriorated because of manipulation of numbers and standards. The new graduates themselves can see this happening, that is why they are leaving. There is no point being a doctor who is not competent and the decision to leave has nothing to do with ethics or lack of patriotism.
Our standard of medical care is slipping. This can be confirmed by the large number of VIPs seeking treatment in Singapore. The wealthier ones see someone in Germany or the United States. Have they no faith in Malaysian doctors? Can you label these people as lacking in ethics and patriotism?
What new machine or equipment is available in Singapore that our hospitals here cannot afford? More often than not, our VIP patients end up being seen by Malaysian doctors who were disappointed by the system in the past and decided to stay in Singapore and not return home.
This is fine if you have deep pockets and can afford to pay your doctors in Singapore dollars. What about the man-in-the-street who has to make do with any doctor they can find? Malaysian doctors are hardworking and intelligent, but we are losing them to neighbouring countries because of short-sighted policies.
YAP BOON KAH,
Kuala Lumpur.
No comments:
Post a Comment