Materia Medica Malaysiana

Private doctors earn up to RM30,000

KUALA LUMPUR: About 95% of the private specialists in the country earn between RM20,000 and RM30,000 a month – three times their counterparts in the government sector, Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president Datuk Dr N. Arumugam said.
According to the Health Ministry’s estimate on the gross monthly pay of its doctors and specialists, the majority of government specialists earn a gross monthly salary of between RM7,300 and RM10,900.
“Gross pay for government specialists include overtime and all other allowances and is far below that of their private counterparts,” a ministry official told The Star in Putrajaya.
The official said there was also a very small number of government specialists who earned between RM13,800 and RM20,000 a month, adding that many were very senior, including heads of department or hospital directors.
“There are one or two in the top earning bracket, including the health director-general whose estimated monthly pay is anything between RM20,000 and RM25,000,” said the official.
The huge disparity in pay has often been blamed for the exodus of government specialists to the private sector.
The monthly pay for government doctors ranges between RM2,900 and RM6,700.
The disparity between government doctors and locums (doctors working in private clinics) is smaller, with MMA putting the locum’s monthly pay at RM5,000 to RM6,000.

However, sources in the pharmaceutical industry said the income for specialists and general practitioners with their own private clinics was higher than estimated, pointing out that they earned a lot from dispensing medicine.