Gov't Hopes To Attain 600-1 Population-To-Doctor Ratio By 2018

KOTA KINABALU, Oct 1 (Bernama) -- The government hopes to attain the World Health Organisation's population-to-doctor ratio of 600 to one by 2018, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said Saturday.
In this respect, he said, private hospitals would play a pivotal role in generating more opportunities for Malaysians to pursue qualifications in medicine and health.
"I'm also very happy to learn that Universiti Malaysia Sabah has since last year started its faculty of medicine.
"Although it started off as a small faculty with about 40 students, I'm optimistic that it will be enlarged in the future and will contribute to Malaysia's target of producing 2,500 doctors per year by the year 2010," he said when opening the Sabah Medical Centre (SMC) in Luyang here.
Najib said that as at the end of last year, there were 21,135 doctors in Malaysia of which between 3-4 per cent are, for some reason, not practising.
He said about 49 per cent of the doctors are attached to the government sector, while 51 per cent are in private practice.
"While the government expects the migration of doctors from the public sector to the private sector to continue as more private hospitals like this one -- Sabah Medical Centre -- go into operation, it is heartening to note that much cooperation is going on between them," he said.
Citing the collaboration between SMC and the Health Ministry, Najib said that it enabled heart and cancer patients referred to SMC by government hospitals to enjoy affordable treatment at the centre.
"Through this collaboration, heart specialists from Institute Jantung Negara come to Sabah on a regular basis to carry out heart procedures alongside SMC specialists.
"I think this is an excellent arrangement and should be continued, even expanded," he said.
On health tourism, Najib said Malaysia would go all out to attract tourists, and in many ways, Malaysia was becoming an increasingly popular tourist destination with arrivals growing to reach 1.5 billion by 2020.
In Sabah, tourist arrivals had also grown significantly over the years and "I understand that the visitors figures has broken the million mark since 2004", he said.
He said the increasing tourist arrivals in the state augured well for further development of health tourism.
Speaking to reporters later, Najib hoped that the private medical universities and colleges would produce more doctors to address the shortage.
He said the government would also work together with military hospitals to train more doctors in the country.
On a short-term solution, Najib said the policy of hiring foreign doctors would continue for the benefit of the people.