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I find this piece of news rather amusing, showing pure stupidity of our politicians. I wonder whether our politicians actually have brains or they left it back home before standing for the election. Singapore will be laughing and ever willing to accept our doctors with open arms.

Our government likes to take short-cuts to solve problems. In the late 1990’s , they decided to open private medical colleges to increase the number of doctors. Following that, private medical colleges grew like mushrooms everywhere and now we see the effect of it. We have the highest number of medical schools in the world , percapita of the population (1 med school for every million)Many unqualified students are being made doctors and they are now flooding the MOH and bringing down the standard of care to a new low-level. If you don’t believe me, just ask anyone of the senior consultants in the Ministry.

Many of this doctors, irrespective whether they have the merit or not, spent their own money to become a doctor. 2 years housemanship and 3 years compulsory service is adequate to train them to be a safe doctor. That was the purpose of the compulsory service. Now , what is this crap about 10 years service??????? 

How can the government force the doctors who studied with their own money to work for them? If they were paid by the tax payers, then it is fine with me. 

What amuses me further is the statement given by DG in Malaysiakini yesterday. He claim that there will never be a surplus of doctors by 2015 because even if we achieve a ratio of 1:600, there will always be shortage in rural areas. I simply don’t understand the logic!!!! Does he know the difference between “maldistribution and “shortage”. If that is so, then why are we producing that many doctors ?

Medical schools have become a lucrative business and the businessman are not bothered about the quality. They are only interested in “MONEY”………

Again, please read my MMA articles page for what I have predicted long time ago.

Govt may extend compulsory public service for doctors

PUTRAJAYA: The Government proposes to extend the compulsory public service for doctors to five or 10 years from the current three to overcome the annual shortage of doctors in its hospitals, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Senator Datuk T. Murugiah said Wednesday.

Last year alone, the country faced a shortage of 5,000 doctors, he added.

“Every year, we face a shortage of doctors because they serve with the Government for only five years — two years on housemanship and three years on compulsory service.

“This system has been in use since 1971 and, as such, we should have a new mechanism to resolve the problem,” he told reporters after a working visit to the Public Service Commission (PSC), here.

Murugiah said the Government’s adoption of the proposal would mean that the doctors would be able to garner more experience before they moved on to the private sector or set up their own practice.

“Doctors should not only think about profit. They also have to think about the country’s interests — your contribution to the country,” he said.

Murugiah said similar measures could also be applied in other disciplines where there was a shortage of personnel such as dentists and pharmacists.

However, he said, this was up to the Health Ministry, Economic Planning Unit (EPU) and the Public Service Department (PSD) to discuss and decide.

He also said that last year, the Government appointed 50,756 civil servants, including candidates for paramedical training, which exceeded the target of 50,000 appointments set by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.

A total of 7,785,262 applications were received and 358,366 people were called for interview but only 199,660 turned up for the interviews, he said. — Bernama

I received this following email from a friend of mine again and it reflects exactly what is happening to this country. We successfully chased away all the best brains and kept the brainless at home, including our politicians.

One of my “old” friend once said that our country is doing sooo well in it’s economy and justified it by showing how millions of foreigners come to find a job here from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan etc etc. For her, this shows how good this country’s economy is. Basically she was trying to defend the UMNO led government.

This was 2 years ago, when she made the statement. I responded that the economy is actually not doing well and how we have lost all the brains. All this workers are unskilled labourers who do not bring any long term benefit to the country. She was adamant the she is right then but now , w e know who is right!

Made in Malaysia — Tay Tian Yan NOV 13 — The following are true stories:

A friend of mine sent me this interesting development in Iskandar Malaysia! This was a piece of prime land that earlier had government squatters. Recently all the squatters were demolished for this privatised project along Jalan Kolam Ayer, Johor Bahru.

Ironically, these houses are only for 1 particular race. It seems that this is a Malay reserve land since independence and such can only be sold to the Malays. Surprisingly again, the houses here are being sold at RM 300-500K, It is a gated and guarded community consisting of bungalows etc.

I always thought that the Malay reserve lands are for the poor Malays but it seems that this is being hijacked by the rich bumiputeras again, both the developer and the buyers!!

These same rich bumiputeras continues to get 10-15% discount for houses when there are so many non-bumis who can’t afford to buy a house. Do you understand the logic?

Welcome to 1Malaysia , malaysian style.

As I said before, our country seem to be moving backwards in every direction, from economy to education and now health service. Not only we have screwed up the medical education of the country but also screwing up the entire poor population.

Do you know that Malaysia has the highest End Stage Renal Failure secondary to Diabetes patients in the world, according to the latest statistics!!

 This was an interesting letter from someone worth reading…………………..:

Africanisation of Malaysian Healthcare

LETTERS/SURAT

Malaysia Today, Wednesday, 20 January 2010   The CAP president must ponder why then should the cream of this country’s students plod through their PMRs, SPMs, strive through A levels, trudge through 5 years of Medical School, two years of housemanship, three years of compulsory service and on some occasions another 5 years of specialist training. The answer is obvious. It is to attain a level of competency so that Malaysians are better served in safe hands. But now 1Malaysia clinics blows all that away doesn’t it?

By Elmina Joseph
I refer to Chris Anthony’s letter “Ensure quality at 1Malaysia clinics” in Malaysiakini and couldn’t agree more.
It appears both the Consumers Association of Penang (CAP) Chairman, S. M. Idris and the current DG of Health are clearly consumed by politics rather then ethics. Idris in particular chooses conveniently to sing where the wind blows without an iota of decency nor morality.

Whatever happened to his lofty ideals of doctors being properly qualified and trained before they are even allowed to touch patients? Not forgetting the fact that he was one of the prime movers that doctors in this country be leashed by the offensive Private Health Care Facilities Act that govern all clinics.

Perhaps his memory has failed him. Or perhaps he now sees himself championing the cause of the poor even though they only get to see Medical Assistants instead of doctors. Miraculously, according to him, Medical Assistants who used to help in private and estate clinics are “experienced and qualified” to see patients independently. A far cry from his usual “unqualified, unregistered practitioners”. He backs up his claims now quoting various examples such as nurse practitioners he conveniently has picked from other countries where it appears to be the practice.

Before Idris gives his slippery stamp of approval for Medical Assistants to diagnose, investigate and treat patients independently, he should perhaps wake up to the fact that Nurse Practitioners in the US have nothing less then an MSc degree. Similarly Nurse Anesthetists in the US who are frequently compared with our GA (General Anesthetic) giving MAs in Sarawak are highly qualified Msc graduates after they have gained a Basic degree in nursing and years of experience.

This applies to almost every other field including Nephrology, Cardiology, Perfusion, Rehab, etc. All these health professionals possess nothing short of a Diploma, a Basic degree and eventually an Msc degree. One writer even quoted perfusionists in this country numbering close to 30 who run heart lung machines for open heart surgery based only on their MA Diplomas. Not a single of them has a Diploma nor a degree in Perfusion.

It would be interesting to analyse the mortality and morbidity results as a result of mishaps arising from MAs backing up as technicians who are unqualified in their specialty fields. The MMA appears to have already published one such article. The same applies to our anesthetic MAs in Sarawak. In the field of trauma, EMTs (Emergency Room Technicians) are adept at resuscitating patients be it in trauma and cardiac arrest after stringent training standards and qualifications both in pre and post-hospital care.

This is clearly not the case with our MAs, though it is no fault of theirs. Both Idris and Merican’s contention that they are qualified to do so are politically expedient. Unsuspecting patients could be misdiagnosed, overdosed or just plainly given the wrong medication for life threatening conditions. The government no doubt will have to bear ultimate responsibility – again with tax-payers’ money as evidenced in the numerous deaths that occurred at our “Skim Latihan Khidmat Negara”.

We are not in an African situation where there are genuinely no doctors or a Zimbabwe situation where Mugabe actually bankrupted the Healthcare system leaving thousands to die of cholera and dysentery.

This country has more then 25 medical schools, far more than Britain itself which has a population more than twice ours.

The primary problem in this country has always been maldistribution of medical practitioners and the Health Ministry’s, especially with this DG’s, continual confrontation of all private doctors who comprise more than half the doctors in this country.

The CAP president must ponder why then should the cream of this country’s students plod through their PMRs, SPMs, strive through A levels, trudge through 5 years of Medical School, two years of housemanship, three years of compulsory service and on some occasions another 5 years of specialist training.

The answer is obvious. It is to attain a level of competency so that Malaysians are better served in safe hands. But now 1Malaysia clinics blows all that away, doesn’t it?

By establishing a very political branding, 1Malaysia Clinic has brought to the healthcare door the bane of gutless politics. Mismanagement and poor accountability have been the keystones for the decline in healthcare provision in Malaysia. Leaking hospitals, non-functioning IT hospitals, hospitals without operating theaters and indeed in Sabah, not even a General Hospital!

Right from this DG’s recent bungling in the H1N1 debacle where he made all of Malaysia run to Sungai Buloh Hospital instead of first being properly screened by primary care/surveillance doctors as in most countries and in the process killing 70 if not more Malaysians till the current dengue scourge, he now seems to have advised his ignorant political partners that it is OK although illegal to provide Medical Assistants and Staff Nurses to provide “simple” medical care to poor unsuspecting urbanites.

Why is it not OK to just let doctors in numerous GP clinics in urban areas see them and subsidize their bills? Even a poor Bangladeshi factory worker gets to see a doctor courtesy of his factory.

Could it be because of the DG’s intolerable abhorrence for General Practitioners? What happened to his lofty rules where every GP should adhere to all those dim-witted regulations that he and his bungling team sod down the throats of Malaysian General Practitioners?

The current DG is an acute embarrassment to Malaysian Healthcare and has now made this country a laughing stock in the eyes of the world. Before he slithers off to become Vice-Chancellor or some similar position in a sleazy medical school he helped approve and set up so as to fleece even more money from ignorant students via PTPTN (Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional) loans and make them debtors for life for worthless degrees they might not be able to utilize, this DG must remember that there will be a price to pay for ultimately misleading this country and its leaders.

With the setting up of 1Malaysia Clinics, is the Ministry of Health implying that only Medical Assistants are good enough for our urban poor and not doctors? Is it because the urbane population is poor and that Medical Assistants should suffice? Or have Medical Assistants now become now equivalent to doctors in general. If that be the case we don’t need 25 medical schools, do we?

Both Idris and Merican’s pathetic attempts to rationalize a poorly thought out avenue for the provision of healthcare to our urban poor in a country that clearly has the financial resources to better its healthcare is not only bound to backfire but will in the end have patients themselves ultimately pay a heavy toll, sometimes with their own lives.

The players responsible for this debacle, Liow, Merican and Idris will eventually have to answer to the Malaysian public.

I received this interesting SMS from my friend yesterday:

” Just went to renew maid’s permit. Model of efficiency: 1 lady to press Q number, 1 lady to pass the no. to you, 1 to process form, 1 to collect fee, 1 to stick in passport. All were sitting on their arse & gossiping. 2 min job became 45 min!”

We have the most bloated civil service in Asia, if not the world. After screwing up the education system, our UMNO led government successfully producing 100 000 unemployable undergraduates yearly. How to hire our graduates when they can’t put a string of word in English. Sometimes I fall down laughing when I see their resumé. Oh yes, sometimes you will notice that the resumé is a “cut and paste” job from a standard text, likely provided by their university! Don’t forget UiTM (the only racist university in the world) is gearing up to produce 200 000 graduates/year by 2012. I wonder where they’re going to find their job.

To overcome this unemployability of our graduates, which sadly comprises of atleast 80% Bumiputeras, the government decided to take the blame. They decided to absorb them into civil service paid by our tax!. What the hell? Now, you know why people get sick of paying tax in this country? They are even appointing graduates now as “Pembantu Tadbir” which means clerks in government office. This was previously done by diploma and certificate holders. BTW, we now have fresh graduates being taken in as lecturers in public university!! Imagine fresh engineering graduate being absorbed as lecturer without any experience of field work!! we are going to see a lot more building collapsing without a bomb in this country soon…..

There are creating more and more post in civil service just to accomodate these graduates. The above SMS explains what is happening now in the civil service. Once, I noticed at the JB/Singapore immigration complex, there were 2 staffs appointed just to distribute the “disembarkation” forms to the travellers!!

Mahathir introduced “dasar pensyarikatan” and ‘dasar penswastaan” in the mid-eighties to cut down the number of civil servants. This was one policy where he was right. The goal of the policy is to cut down the civil servants to about 500 000. Well, he did manage to maintain a reasonable number of civil servants. At the time of his retirement, there were only 900 000 civil servants. Unfortunately, the new administration after that wanted a short cut to solve the unemployment issue and thus have successfully increased the number to almost 1.5 million (in just 5 years). I wonder, how long can the government sustain this amount of civil servants, plus pensioners and contract workers.

almost 60% of our budget is now allocated as “operational budget”. This is scary! Furthermore, 60% of our revenue comes from oil and gas industry. We are net importers of petroleum by 2012. Would we have enough money to even sustain our operational budget? Time will tell. GST is coming, subsidies are being cut. Rakyat will suffer eventually.

I read this wonderful writing by Art Harun in his blog http://art-harun.blogspot.com/. This was exactly what I meant when I said that our country is heading for doom……………….(please read my comment under politics)

Enjoy reading.

Our Failings
9 January, 2010
By Art Harun
The failings of the political Malay are discovered in the burning ashes of the churches attacked in Kuala Lumpur.
“And as the flames climbed high into the night; To light the sacrifical rite; I saw Satan laughing with delight; The day the music died.”
American Pie -Don McLean
And so, this is what has become of us. A nation where the music has long since died.
We have banished our conscience at the foot of political expediency. We have long since been only moved to claim what is ours, or what we believe to be ours, and ours alone. We have long since been only moved to protect our rights or what we believe to be our rights.
We have been indoctrinated to think and we do think that everything in this land has a proprietary right attached to it. And we draw a line. These are mine. Those are yours. And into my area you should not encroach. We are like wild dogs pissing everywhere to mark our territory.
We have also been taught to differentiate our fellow human beings based on the colour of their skin. And the faith we bear. And the language we speak. And we now believe that only us and us alone are right. Everybody else is wrong. And we also now believe that only us and us alone matter. Everything, everyone else does not.
Soon we realise that we even have to own our race and the colour of our skin. We also have to own our language. That is sacrosanct. It cannot be Bahasa Malaysia nor Bahasa Kebangsaan. It has to be Bahasa Melayu. Because that is us. Because that language belongs to us. That is ours. We must possess it. We must not let it go. And we piss and piss drawing lines to mark our territory. While others have gone to the moon and back.
Now we own our faith. And our God. We now piss all over to mark and re-mark our territory, again and again. And again, that this is our territory. Ours. Mine. Not yours. And don’t you dare encroach into my area. Because you have no right over what is mine. You had better get away from it.
We have locked away our capacity to engage and to argue in a locker room somewhere between Putrajaya and KLCC. We have thrown away the keys. We have deleted civility, good manners and human decency from our hard disk.
All that we have is anger. And our capacity to strike. We have built an impenetrable firewall to ward off any kind of tolerance or rationality. Those will be blocked and quickly booted out from our system.
When we perceive a challenge – and we do that very quickly – we will strike.
The State meanwhile cavorts us. It condones us. When we carry a severed and bloodied cow head from a mosques to protest against some Hindu temple, the State gently met us. The State listened to us. The State said it understood our grievances. The State was sorry that our grievances were not heard by others. The State concluded that we had no bad intention. The State shook our hands, sat with us and pacified us.
And so we threatened to show our might, to protect what is ours. To defend God, our God who is definitely not your God. We are angry. Our area has been encroached. And together we must rise to protect what is ours. Together we must defend what is ours. Allah, this God is ours.
And the State stands by the side of the road saying it will not do anything against our plan. The State suddenly says it is powerless to stop us because according to the State, “people will demonstrate if they want to”.
The State says that there is a balancing act which has to be done, namely, our interest as an angry people and the interest of the national security. And accordingly, the State implies that we can carry out our threat up to a point when national security is threatened. But that point is not defined. It is still subject to discretion and interpretation. By the State.
We are relieved and happy to note that we can demonstrate our anger. Because before this we note that even candle-lighting vigilers singing Negara Ku have been arrested and detained. Even lawyers coming to the aid of their clients have been arrested and detained by the State. What more an anti-ISA rally.
The State came with all its might. It was there with its truckloads of baton wielding officers and that monstrous tank spewing acid laced water against us. It was there with that water and canisters of tear gas. It was there with batons. Even children were arrested and detained.
But this time, the State was meek. So we can do whatever we planned. And whatever we planned is in the name of God. We planned to protect God.
How dare you encroach into our area?
And in the name of Allah, we strike.