Star: KUALA LUMPUR: The Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman will be offering medical courses soon which the Government hopes will stem the shortage of doctors in Malaysia.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, who announced this, said that only 53% of all positions in government hospitals for doctors were taken up and the Government was forced to hire 700 contract doctors to fill the void.
He said many facilities including intensive care units and operating theatres were under-utilised because there were not enough qualified staff to run them, thus the need to increase the number of doctors.
“Facilities in local hospitals need to be expanded to cater for more housemen. Not all universities have hospitals to provide training for housemen. We have 135 hospitals but only about 50 of them can cater for housemanship.
“Our target is one doctor to 600 patients. Our current ratio is one doctor to 1,145 patients, so there is a lot of room for improvement,” he told reporters after presenting scrolls to Utar graduates during a convocation ceremony at Wisma MCA yesterday.
The convocation is being held over three days and involves 2,895 graduates.
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