Whenever the salary scheme changes, issues like this will appear. The letter below appeared in the Sun yesterday http://www.thesundaily.my/news/257153. It will always benefit the juniors and the seniors will always lose out and forced to leave. When SSM was introduced in 2003, I was one of the casualty. I was gazetted 2 weeks after SSM was introduced and just because of that I did not get my promotion to U48. People who were gazetted just 2 weeks before me were given promotion. It took me another 4 years after much discussion between SCHOMOS, MOH and JPA for me to get my U48 promotion. By this time, even my juniors who were just gazetted in 2006 were also given U48!! So, in terms of salary, I was sitting at the same salary as my juniors of 4 years. That was one of the reason I quit civil service and joint Monash University then.
As I had written before https://pagalavan.com/politics/government-doctors-promotion/, when the time based promotion was introduced in 2010, the same situation happened. The senior consultants were given U54 at the same time with junior specialist. Basically a consultant who has been in service for almost 15 years was sitting at the same salary as a junior specialist of 9 years of service. A consultant and his subspeciality trainee was at the same salary. Again, this chased away a lot of senior specialist from civil service.
Now, with the introduction of the new salary scheme for civil servants (SBPA), the same issue is happening again. The seniors who were in U54 will be at the same salary with junior specialist of U54. Everyone will be getting the same salary except for those who are in JUSA scale. There is a huge bottleneck at U54 that not many are going to be promoted to JUSA in near future. IT is really demoralising to be in their situation and I felt the same when I was stuck at U41 grade for almost 4 years after gazettement.
These are the many frustration that you will face in civil service. It only chases away all the good hardworking senior consultants, leaving behind the “world travellers” and apple polishers. Unfortunately, the private sector is also getting saturated with lower incomes. So, if you can’t beat them, joint them lah…………
Senior medical specialist in distress
Posted on 4 January 2012 – 07:40pm
Last updated on 4 January 2012 – 08:19pm
I AM a senior specialist practising in one of the busiest hospitals in the country. I’m in my 10th year of service as a specialist and 19th year of service as a doctor.
The introduction of “Sistem Saraan Baru Perkhidmatan Awam” or SBPA has been unfair to me and other senior specialists and consultants who are stuck at maximum salary scale in the UD54 post.
First, based on the SBPA salary adjustment formula, I and many other senior specialists will see an increment of 3.9% from our previous scale of P1T8 (Sistem Saraan Malaysia) to UD1-6 T1 scale (SBPA scale).
However, a different formula is used for salary adjustment of junior specialists that does not make any sense.
Ironically, these junior specialists were automatically promoted in 2010 through a “time-based” promotion exercise. Junior specialists who are holding the UD54 post will be paid the same salary as senior specialists and consultants in SBPA.
Some of these junior specialists were my former house officers and medical officers when I was a specialist. As an example, a junior specialist who holds a UD54 post in my department draws a salary of RM5,465.42 (P1T2). After SBPA is implemented on Jan 1, his or her salary is increased by 30.1% to a scale of UD1-6 T1.
According to media reports and PSD, civil servants were supposed to enjoy an increase of 7-13% in pay rise but how do you explain the big jump for junior specialists? Isn’t this unfair to senior specialists and consultants? I understand that those in JUSA post will also enjoy a big increase in pay rise and thus, making us a breed that is easily dismissed, expendable and easily forgotten.
Today, with the introduction of SBPA, we will all be lumped together and thus, senior ones like me will lose our years of service. I do not know if anyone realises that we are the ones who perform the bulk of specialist work, train the junior specialists, train the medical officers, Masters candidates and house officers, involved in various ISO and accreditation activities and come up with ideas that benefit the department and hospitals in general.
We also perform activities that fulfil Key Performance Indexes (KPI) and make sure our services satisfy our customers. With the implementation of SBPA, it makes us feel as if, all our services are unappreciated.
I also noted that there has been no promotion exercise at all for us clinicians in 2011. Most senior specialists and consultants can’t imagine what is in store for them after looking at such unfair practices in salary adjustment. I believe that the lack of proper career development paths that we see in SBPA will compel more senior specialists to leave government service.
As a senior specialist, I have sacrificed my precious time to gain knowledge and skills and have continued to serve the Health Ministry diligently. I hope the higher authorities including the ministry will look into our plight and save whatever little dignity that is left of us.
Doctor
Shah Alam
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