MO contract termination
KUCHING: Sarawak Patriots Association (SPA) was shocked to learn of the termination of the service contracts of two Sarawakian medical officers (MOs).
“The termination is disheartening. What will be the steps taken by the Ministry of Health to assist Dr Wong and Dr Bong?” asked SPA chairman Datuk Dr John Lau Pang Heng in an interview yesterday.
Dr Wong Woan Hui and Dr Bong Ing Hui who served in Sibu Hospital brought up the issue of their contract termination in a press conference last Saturday.
Lau pointed out that MOH are encouraged to have the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and competency requirement so that MOs can follow the guidelines strictly while they are undergoing specialist training.
He wanted MOH to come up with an explanation on the termination.
Dr Wong was with the Obstetrics & Gynecology (O&G) department and passed MRCOG part 1 paper in February 2018, while Dr Bong was with the Pediatric department for two years and one year as HO and she had also passed her MRCP (Pediatric) part 1 in 2018.
The two were under training to be a specialist and their requirement was a four-year training under a specialist and consultant.
Both of them had graduated from leading medical schools in United Kingdom and their housemanship was done in United Kingdom as well.
Lau noted that according to an independent policy researcher Lim Chee Han, more and more trainee doctors took longer than 24 months, from the day they provisionally registered themselves at the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC), to finish their housemanship.
“From 368 trainee doctors in 2008 to 3,402 in 2015, before dipping to 2,872 in 2016 — there appears to be a serious problem and it’s getting aggravated,” Lim told the Second Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Association, Malaysia (FPMPAM) Malaysian Health Care Conference in Kuala Lumpur in September 2019 as reported in https://codeblue.galencentre.org/.
He (Lim) said more housemen either waited longer for placement in government hospitals, or needed extension of training, or both.
MMC issues a provisional registration licence to medical graduates after they received a house officer post offer.
According to Lim, in Dec 2015 MMC said it would give medical graduates an endorsement letter first as waiting for housemanship could take as long as six to nine months.
Lim also observed longer stays as house officers, from an average 22.8 months in 2009 to 27.8 months in 2016.
Due to such housemanship matter, Lau requested that the MOH investigate why housemanship took longer than 24 months to complete.
