Doctors heading east may get study grants

NST: KUALA LUMPUR: Doctors who volunteer to serve in Sabah and Sarawak where there is an acute shortage of medical personnel will be given postgraduate (specialist) scholarships.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said this at the Malaysian Medical Association's (MMA) annual banquet held in conjunction with the 49th Malaysian Medical Association annual meeting last week. He also assured doctors of regular promotions for all government medical practitioners.
MMA president Dr David Quek said the minister also informed their members that the government hoped to achieve the ratio of one doctor to 600 people throughout the country by 2015.
As of Dec 31 last year, there were 25,000 doctors in Malaysia -- 15,000 in government service and 10,000 in the private sector.
To ease the shortage of doctors in the rural areas, the government might soon invite private clinic doctors to serve for certain hours in government clinics, said Dr Quek.
He said the ministry would liaise closely with the MMA to resolve doctors' problems.
On companies dealing with medical insurance cards, he said they would not be allowed to check clinic case notes and inspect the clinic dispensary.
"They should not charge for their services."
As for limiting consultants' fees to RM15, he said it was too low. He added that these companies should not restrict referral of special cases only to certain private hospitals.