As I have written numerous times in my MMA article and here, in my blog, the mushrooming of medical and nursing colleges in this country has made a mockery of the education system. Not only there are so many nursing colleges in Malaysia(106 as mentioned in this article below), the quality of their products are questionable. I was told that you can get into a nursing college even if you have failed SPM! You don’t have to pay anything as the college will apply for PTPTN loan for you.
I heard that due to shortage of teaching staff, they have started to recruit nurses who are just 1 year in service to become clinical tutors. What experience do they have? Some colleges have tutors from other countries like Myanmar and Philipines. Since I am in medical field, I can clearly see the poor quality of these nurses. They don’t even understand a word of english at times. The mentality is so low that sometimes you feel like you are talking to a wall.
It is good that the government is going to stop new nursing colleges but will this solve the problem? The existing nursing colleges itself are producing thousands of nurses of doubtful quality and they will keep producing them to get profit. So the number of new nurses will continue to be produced by these colleges, or may even increase! Even now, there are fresh nurses who are unable to find a job as the government service seem to be saturated with them. To absorb more nurses into the civil service, the government decided to promote more nurses to sister’s post. Thus, junior nurses ended up being promoted to sisters so much so that now we have 2 sisters in each wards!! Quality ? you know the answer!
In another 5 years time, the same situation will occur to the medical doctors. We can already see it coming with the poor quality of doctors that are being produced over the last 3-5 years. Be very worried! these are the people who are going to treat you in the near future, hopeless nurses and doctors (sorry to say this, but it is the truth!)
No more nursing schools from July
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said a moratorium was necessary to prevent an oversupply of nurses and other problems arising from graduate unemployment.
“The move will also prohibit the launch of new diploma programmes in nursing as the ministry wants existing providers to concentrate more on degree courses.
“There will be no more private institutions providing nursing courses as we are already on the right track to achieve the recommended World Health Organisation nurse to population ratio of 1:200,” he said in a press conference at Hotel Istana yesterday.
“The moratorium will be in place as long as the supply of nurses meets market demand.”
Malaysia’s current nurse to population ratio is 1:490.
Speaking after launching Masterskill Education Group Sdn Bhd’s prospectus in conjunction with its proposed listing on the main market of Bursa Malaysia, Mohamed Khaled said Malaysia had enough institutions to achieve the ideal ratio.
“There are 106 higher education institutions that train nurses in the country and we (the ministry) want them to concentrate on improving quality,” he said.
“Currently, most programmes in nursing and the allied health sciences are at diploma level and Malaysia requires more trainers and students at degree levels in these fields,” he added.
Of the 106 institutions, 66 are private providers, 11 are public institutions and the rest are run by the Health Ministry.
He added that established private higher education providers like Masterskill could contribute to Malaysia’s aspiration of becoming the region’s education hub by recruiting more international students.
Pagalavan's Avatar 
Hi Doc,
I bumped into your blog post when i was searching in Google about nursing jobs. I am actually a bonded student,and also I was just wondering is there really shortage of nurses in the private sector?
Plus,theres substantial numbers of nurses that they are going to graduate soon. Once I met one of the HR hospital,she told me thats theres about 300 applications of staff nurse vacancy itself and they only want to pick about 10 out of them.
I am just curious,is that really true? Since I heard in news they were saying they are lack of nurses…
The lack of nurses is few years ago. Then the government decided to approve many new nursing colleges without any control on the output. Now the situation has changed, there are many nurses without a job. The KKM nurses will get the priority in government hospitals leaving the private nursing college graduates looking at the private sector. You are right, even in my hospital Columbia Asia, Nusajaya which just opened, there are hundreds of applications for minimal number of post! I know of a staff nurse who is currently working at a petrol station!
Wow!! I see… I guess the HR was right. Usually many people in the city would aim to get jobs in the private’s not the government’s.. So I guess being bonded was a bad idea (laughs)
I was just wondering too,how much nurses do they need in a hospital in average?
Plus,I think Malaysia is just not lacking of nurses,they are just lacking of experience nurses.
Yup, we need nurses with speciality now, not general diploma nurses. Unfortunately with the quality of nurses being produced, I doubt about that!
Yes, Dr. Pagalavan, i have more to add to your article. there are too many nursing colleges in Malaysia and too limited places for nursing practicum, many student nurses end up being posted to Nursing homes, old folks’ home, home for handicate children and etc… How much they can learn from these places? I am doubtful.
Dr. Pagalavan,
I agreed with your statement. I have written to the higher authority in the Ministry of Health regarding issues that happened in a tertiary hospital. They sent their people to investigate. Ironically, they take this matter lightly and appear to be influence by the people in ‘power’. So much have been said about inexperience doctors and nurses – but who will take this matter seriously. We have inexperience junior nurses without any post-basic taking up post as ‘sister’. Further, we have ward attendant doing the job of health care professionals – like doing audiology test for the newborn child etc and acting like ‘bigots professionals’.
Despite the much talked about on the poor quality of doctors, and some perhaps are hopeless doctor, surprising these are the one who are holding top position (blame this to the poor vision of stakeholders in their selection). If hopeless doctor who dont seem to have a clue about the impact of quality care and the future of health industry is to chair the top position – what future the public have! This is a sad state and it is a pattern in any public organisation – poor selection! I remember one true story from friends working in this tertiary hospital – one attendant was promoted to a ‘Kanan’ not because he is capable in his job, but was promoted because he ferry (to and fro) the Hospital Director (Clinical) to work every day. Because this particular Hosp Director (Clinical) dont possess a driving license. Most profound was this doctor dont have a clinical specialisation in any discipline as compare to his other colleagues. The ardage is ‘if one acquire the right cable or lean on the right wall – one will climb high’. LOL – this is true in the public service!
It has been a year since this article was published and i still see lots of new nursing colleges being advertised in the newspaper everyday without any signs of slowing down. Likely there will going to be flooded in the nursing market soon.
NUrsing colleges will continue to increase their numbers. That’s the reality
I know of some private nursing college offers $60K study loan, where as the course fees is only about $30K. Once the student sign up they just approve $60K loan. i guess they are trying to recruit as many as possible so the statistic figure looks good in their book. in order to get the college listed in the KLSE. Once it get listed all the directors and shareholder cepat Kaya. so dont buy nursing college shares.
[…] I say this almost 2 years ago? https://pagalavan.com/2010/04/27/no-more-nursing-schools-from-july/. The government stopped new nursing colleges from July 2010 onwards but this was what I said […]
quantity without quality is nothing. many of us just know how to comment but can we help by doing something about it because action is louder than word. being 10years experience in nursing, as we reliase many change happen. not only i am aging but sometime we forget how we start as fresh graduate. if we think we are diva, we must be a role model. open communication is the key. when we said we are short of nurse years ago, we ask for urgent supply so they are here..so now what?
we should not cut off the supply but can reduce it because if we focus on future global healthcare need and global warming, it is better to have trained person in hand.
[…] I say this almost 2 years ago? https://pagalavan.com/2010/04/27/no-more-nursing-schools-from-july/. The government stopped new nursing colleges from July 2010 onwards but this was what I said […]
[…] the government introduced moratorium of nursing colleges, I wrote this in April 2010. Remember what I said, that even if there is a moratorium, the existing schools will […]