Materia Medica Malaysiana

Nursing unit needed to address the problem

The nursing profession needs an overhaul and the nurses want to accomplish this by themselves.
The Malaysian Nurses Association (MNA) acknowledged that the quality and service of nursing at Government hospitals have declined over the last 15 years.
To arrest this, the MNA wants a nursing division set up within the Health Ministry to look after matters related to the profession.
MNA president Dayang Annie Abang Narudin said yesterday that setting up a division in the Health Ministry was among several proposals they had made in 1996.
She said two years ago, the Public Service Department invited the association for discussions on the matter but nothing materialised.
“We are still fighting for it although we have been promised it would receive due attention over the years. Nothing has materialised so far,” she said.
Among other proposals the MNA had made were that a local degree programme be offered for nursing, attractive perks be introduced for those in supervisory positions, and that more opportunities be made available in the supervisory and management level.
She attributed the drop in standards to the training programme at nursing colleges.
“For instance, more than 10 years ago, there used to be two batches of student nurses, numbering between 30 and 40 a year, undergoing training from a few tutors.
“Now, there are more than 100 in a batch under the same number of tutors who are trained in teaching and not specifically in nursing.
“Therefore, the quality of tutoring should be addressed too,” she said.
Dayang Annie said the ideal ratio should be one tutor to 20 students.
She said they had expressed dissatisfaction through various meetings with Ministry officials.
“We are aware of these shortcomings and to make matters worse, students too do not have adequate clinical practice at the hospitals.
It was reported in the media yesterday that there is a shortage of 130,000 nurses in the country, with only 40,000 in the service.
Health Minister Datuk Chua Soi Lek had said the country needed to produce at least 8,000 nurses a year. However, it can hardly produce 2,000 a year due to the high failure rate among students.
Last year, only 44 per cent of the 2,000 trainees passed, compared with the 98 per cent success rate in the private sector.