Materia Medica Malaysiana

Plan to hire retired doctors for rural areas

Wanted: Retired doctors to serve in rural Malaysia. The Health Ministry believes that this group of professionals can help relieve the acute shortage of doctors in far-flung places.

Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said that one of his priorities was to improve health facilities in kampungs and estates and get more doctors to serve there.

"We have re-employed 34 retired doctors to work in rural areas and are hoping for more to join them," he said. He planned to persuade retired doctors to take up positions in health clinics and would use the relaxed and healthy environment of the rural areas as a selling point.

He also said the 643 foreign doctors recruited would be sent to work in rural hospitals and polyclinics. The ministry is also considering providing quarters and other amenities for those willing to serve in rural areas.

The Government had allocated RM460 million under the Seventh Malaysia Plan and RM862 million under the Eighth Malaysia Plan for rural health development.

The main thrust of the Eighth Malaysia Plan is to upgrade existing facilities and construct new health facilities in rural areas, but he said this objective was scuttled by the zest to build new hospitals.

More than 50 per cent of the allocation under the plan was channelled to build new hospitals, he said.

He added that the main health problems in rural areas were those related to the respiratory and digestive systems, and skin and parasitic infections.

A straw poll of retired doctors showed that most of them were not interested in uprooting their families and serving in rural areas.

A 64-year-old doctor said that many retired doctors earned more by doing locum.