It has been almost 3 months since I last updated my blog. I had to travel a lot during these 3 months and a lot of personal issues to settle. But one thing I never forget or miss, is to vote! I have voted in every election since 1995 except in 1999 where I could not go back as I was on-call(at that time my voting station was in Seremban before I changed to Johor for 2008 election). This year’s election was the mother of all elections and the verdict was something I had never expected. I never expected BN to fall in my life time! The most I expected was to give BN a close simple majority to win. I also never expected Johor to fall and close to winning 2/3 majority by Pakatan. While I stood awake till 4am in the morning of 10/05/2018, i could not resist the tears that flowed through my eyes when I saw the people of Malaysia waking up and voting out a government that has been in power for 61 years.
I had always supported a 2 party system. It is a system that is in place in most western countries or matured democracies. The people have the power to decide which coalition party will rule the country. In any such countries, you will see that the people will change the government every 5-10 years. This will keep the ruling party on their toes and never to underestimate the power of the people. Once they fall, their dirt will be washed in public as what you can see happening right now in Malaysia. So, in the future no party can hide anything for long. It will benefit the people in long run.
So, what are we to expect from this new government. To be frank, I don’t expect much in 5 years. There are a lot of things that need to be corrected over a short period of time. First and foremost, I feel the new government should put a system in place that will prevent any form of power abuse. AG, MACC, EC chairman etc should be elected by Parliament and made answerable to the Parliament. MACC should be given power to prosecute. These people should face the Parliament to answer questions from both side. Prime Minister’s term should be limited and Finance Minister should never be the Prime Minister.
WE should not forget that the mess that this country is in now, and abused to the maximum by the previous PM was created by our current 7th Prime MInister! I had written enough about this in my earlier articles way back in 2010. I had mentioned how DR M’s social engineering and Malay nationalist ideas destroyed the future of this country. However, he did develop this country into an economic power house which benefited many people. Unfortunately, as smart as he is, he never expected or foresee that his very own people will misuse the system that he created. I just hope that in his last few years of life, he had realised his mistakes and do what is necessary. I had always said to many people that GOD will make sure that DR M will live long enough to see the damage that he has done to this country. GOD is great!
Many people asked me whether anything will change to the medical field. Firstly, I don’t think the long waiting period of medical graduates for employment will change anytime soon. With the current financial situation of the country, it is unlikely that the new government can create more post or even build more hospitals. With increasing number of graduates from this year( where all medical schools will be producing graduates), the waiting period will only get longer. However, one thing that the new Education Minister can do is to tighten the entry qualification into the medical program. By doing this and making the accreditation process tougher, many medical schools (especially the smaller “shop-lot” ones) will undergo slow death due to lack of enrolment. Over the last 2 -3 years, many medical schools already struggling to meet the required number of students.Imagine increasing the entry criteria to 5A’s in SPM with higher CGPA in Pre-U courses. Hopefully, this measure will slowly reverse the current situation over the next 5-10 years. Remember, the mess that we are in now was created almost 14 years ago!
If even the Ministers’ have to take pay-cuts, I don’t expect any pay rise to civil servants in near future. Probably once the country’s economic status is better, we can expect some pay rise. What I would like to see is a complete restructuring of the Malaysian Healthcare System. The current system of having public and private healthcare system running parallel to each other is not sustainable in long run. The government would not be able to sustain the increasing healthcare cost and maintaining an almost free healthcare system. On the other hand, the private health insurance companies would not be able to sustain the private health sector. Our private health sector is almost 90% funded by the private health insurance. I use to tell my friends that if the private health insurance collapses, I will become jobless!
I would really like to see a proper integration of public and private healthcare sector via a National Health Financing Scheme. This should include the GPs, private hospitals, KKs and public hospitals. WE have enough doctors but maldistribution is the issue. BY having such a system, maldistribution between private and public sector can be reduced. Eventually, this will also reduce the maldistribution between urban and rural areas.
With all the euphoria that we are having now, it is just too early to say how this new government will perform. Statistic shows that Pakatan only received 48% of the votes with BN & PAS taking 52% of the votes. Pakatan won in many areas due to split votes. PAS benefited from split votes in Kelantan and Terengganu. Personally, I feel that the Pakatan government is not really in a very stable situation. Tides can change by next election if they do not outperform the previous government by leaps and bounds.
Whatever said, politics in Malaysia will NEVER be the same anymore………
SELAMAT HARI RAYA 2018 TO EVERYONE………
Pagalavan's Avatar 
I agree with your narrative for the current political situation of our country. Dr M was not involved with 1MBD but he damn sure wrote the blueprints for its creation. Tun Razak is Najib’s biological father but Tun M is his political one. Our country will need 10 to 15 years to repair the damage the previous authoritarian populist government. However I fear that the current ruling government also has too much populist policies. Anyway my concern will be our medical fraternity. Our masters programme needs to be revamped. We need to be accredited for the FRCS in the other surgical fields aside from uro and ctc. We need to allow more freedom to move from private to government centres and still undergo postgraduate training. We also have to do away with useless KPI and focus on research that makes sense. Most importantly as you have said be tighter in our entry qualifications for medical schools. Deregister bogus degrees and revoke degrees awarded to questionable doctors. This will take a lot time to fix this mess. Definitely more than 5 years. Oh well, baby steps first Eh? Cheers Dr Paga. Good article as always.
Hi Doc!
I have always loved reading your blog posts even as a medical student. My name is Shaun and I am representing my cohort in writing this comment. I’m currently in my second year of housemanship and there are looming questions which no one has been able to answer yet and I was wondering if you could solve this mystery.
I’m currently one of the new contract HOs and the first batch of contract HOs are finishing in a couple months. As stated previously not every contract HOs will be offered a permanent position in the government sector. However, we were wondering how does this affect our full registration?
So here are the unanswered questions:
1. Do we (contract HOs) get our full registration immediately after we complete Housemanship?
2. Are we still subjected to compulsory service and how long would that be for?
3. What about those who can’t secure a permanent position? Would they not receive their full registration thus being unable to practice medicine? Vice versa and if they do still receive their full registration, wouldn’t it be unfair to those that has to complete their compulsory service JUST BECAUSE they got accepted?
4. What happens if we don’t complete the compulsory service? I’ve seen tons of doctors who have left prematurely yet they are still practicing medicine.
Any insight regarding these questions would be extremely helpful! Thank you in advance!
Regards,
Shaun
A concerned contract HO planning for his future
I think this has been explained by DG before. All those who complete HO end of this year under contract will be extended another 2 years to complete the 4 years compulsory service. You can also apply for Permanent MO post but not all may get this. There is no issue of Full registration as you are confirmed of getting it after Housemanship. It is the APC which is affected by non compliance to compulsory service. APC is issued annually.
Obviously there are some who do not know the difference between full registration and APC and thus practicing illegally.
Please comment on the recent sex predator case. How to prevent horny Doctors from becoming an animal. Tq
Dear Sir,
I’m really sorry to bother you but I just wanted to inquire about something that has been bothering me for a while. I was previously a student at a branch campus here in Malaysia only to be kicked out later for failing one exam during my fourth year. It left me broken down but I got back up and started my degree again at another lesser known and cheaper university. The thing is, I hate that I had to go down this route and choose a lesser known uni when I could have graduated with a ‘foreign’ degree. I feel dejected and feel like when I graduated, I won’t be on par with the other graduates who come from better, more established school. I’m a good student and a hard worker and I’ve always maintained a 3.50 CGPA at the very least. It was only in my fourth year where the stress got the better of me that lead me to failing my exams. Now I’m currently in my 2nd year in my new uni. The thing is, if I quickly get my postgrads certs like mrcph/masters, do I have a chance of going further than those who go to better schools like qualifying to work in SG? Like is anyone going to ask where you graduated from bla bla bla? I’m just so embarrassed because my current uni isn’t the best but at least it’ll give me the degree.
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This only happens in Malaysia. Do you know that if you are in UK or Australia or any other western country, you won’t even be able to enrol into another university if kicked out from one university?
As for your question: master’s is not recognised elsewhere. MRCP will make you eligible to work in Singapore BUT does not mean you’re going to get a post. Even for UM and UKM students who apply to Singapore, not all are getting an internship post either.
Even in well know universities in the world, the failure rate is about 3-5%. There is no such thing as 100% passing rate except in Malaysia. The branch campus follows strict rules decided by their medical council.
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