Sabah and Sarawak to have more doctors

BorneoPost: SIBU: The Ministry of Health will take measures to increase the number of doctors in Sabah and Sarawak.
Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, Health Minister Dato Sri Liow Tiong Lai said there was a huge disparity between the number of doctors in West Malaysia and in Sarawak.
“For big cities in Peninsular Malaysia, the doctor to population ratio is 1:400 but in Sarawak, it is 1:2,000,” he said.
To upgrade the health service in Sarawak, the ministry would send specialists to the state, he said.
For the short term, the ministry would get contract doctors from overseas and for the long term, internees.
Liow said there were doctors resigning from government service to go into private practice every year.
“We have never stopped them because private clinics are also part of the health service in our country,” he said.
It was reported in Tuesday’s paper that Deputy Health Minister Datuk Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin told the Dewan Rakyat that 452 doctors resigned in 2008; 338 in 2009 and 386 in 2010 while 265 have resigned up to August this year.
According to him, the ministry had trained many doctors to increase the quality of health service in the country.
“Back in 2005, we could train only 1,000 doctors a year at the most, but today we can train 3,500 to 4,000 a year,” he said.