Govt No Longer Keen On Hiring Expatriate Doctors

PUTRAJAYA, July 18 (Bernama) -- The government is no longer keen on hiring expatriate doctors on a contract basis following the poor performance of some hired to complement the health service.
Disclosing this Tuesday, Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said besides the unsatisfactory performance, poor language proficiency, either in English or Bahasa Malaysia among them, was also a factor.
He said the contracts of 118 such doctors hired by the ministry were terminated between 2003 and June this year, involving 43 from Pakistan, Egypt (36), India (20) and the rest from other nations.
"Besides their inability to learn the local languages or English fast enough, their contracts were also terminated due to poor performance or other reasons like tardiness, being irresponsible when called to come for duty after "on-call" hours, not adhering to their rostered schedules and not having sufficient expertise," he told reporters after presenting excellent service awards for 2005 to 316 ministry staff, here.
"That's why we are no longer keen on employing them. Although we are entitled to employ another 600 more, we are not going to do it," he said, adding that there were still 698 expatriate doctors serving the ministry throughout the country.
However, he said the government was not freezing their intake as it was meant to alleviate a shortage, especially in Sabah, Sarawak and rural areas in the peninsula.
"We do not intend to freeze. Freeze means an official policy, which means that if we want to, we cannot do it.
Chua was confident that following the move (not hiring expatriates), less Malaysian doctors would resign from government service, thus not affecting the ministry's services adversely.
He said the contract period of the foreign doctors was usually three years but they could be let go anytime, if there were valid reasons.