Ageing population needs more geriatricians

Star: KUALA LUMPUR: There are only 10 doctors specialising in the care for the elderly, or geriatricians, to cater to the 1.2 million people in Malaysia who are above 65 years old.
This makes the ratio of geriatrician to patient at 1:120,000. Ideally, it should be 1:10,000.
In his speech read by director of medical development division Dr Noorimi Murad at the Asia Pacific Geriatric Conference yesterday, Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said that in 2000, 6.2% of the Malaysian population was above 60 years old.
“It is expected to rise to 7.3% by 2010 and almost 10% by 2020, and by 2025, about 11% of the population will be aged above 60.
“A study by the Public Health Institute in 1995 indicated that 81.4% of the elderly suffered from at least one chronic medical illness, and 12.7% of them had three or more chronic medical conditions,” he said.
He added that “there was a clear association of increasing disability with advancing age ? where 50.1% of our elderly had chronic joint pains, 40% had eyesight problems and 21.1% had hearing difficulties”.
The conference's scientific chairperson, associate professor Dr Philip Poi said that, as such, there were plans to overcome the lack of geriatricians.
“We are in the planning stages to have a Masters in Geriatric Medicine in Universiti Malaya (UM). We hope to have the course ready in a year or two,'' said Dr Poi, who is also UM’s head of division of geriatrics.
He also said “physicians who are already specialists in their own right can go for a one-year geriatric training in University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC)”.