Materia Medica Malaysiana

Six Health Ministry Service Schemes Upgraded

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 10 (Bernama) -- Six of the Health Ministry's service schemes have been upgraded, according to a statement from the Public Services Department (PSD) Friday.
They are tutor, nurse, radiographer, assistant environmental health officer, public health assistant and dental surgery assistant, it said.
The statement said the move was in line with the government's efforts to provide the best service to the people through various ways including improving service quality.
It said the status of tutors at the ministry's health training institutes would be upgraded from diploma level to the new requirement of a bachelor's degree in the relevant Allied Health Sciences field.
Through the service schemes, the officers under the Allied Health Sciences field (formerly known as paramedics) with a bachelor's degree can enter service through appointment exchange. Fresh candidates can also enter the service by direct appointment.
Through the new service schemes, its officers would now be under the Management and Professional Group instead of the previous Supporting Group. A total of 215 officers who taught at the institute had bachelor's degrees and 11 had the Masters degree.
The status of nurses, radiographers and assistants of environmental health officers would be upgraded to grades under the Management and Professional Group, specifically U41/42, U44 and U48. However, grades U29, U32 and U36 are retained.
The service schemes for public health assistants and dental surgery assistants have also been upgraded with a new requirement based on the Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia qualification instead of the previous one which was based on the Penilaian Menengah Rendah.
The minimum salary for the new service schemes is RM690.18 (compared to RM547.40) while the maximum is RM1,529.92 (compared to RM1,442.80).
With the formulation and amendment of the six service schemes, current staff are given the option to switch. A total of 226 tutors, 26,318 nurses, 800 radiographers, 1,679 assistant environmental health officers, 2,387 public health officers and 1,611 dental surgery assistants are involved.
There are 281 service schemes covering 20 classifications of services under the Malaysian Remuneration System.