PUTRAJAYA: A total of 150 health clinics nationwide will accommodate trainee doctors (house officers) to undergo the compulsory two years housemanship.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the ministry was also expanding the service to several hospitals that never offered training facility.
"Some 5,000 graduates have to wait between three to six months to start their mandatory training. This is a big issue and we expect the number to rise in the next few years," he told reporters after chairing the ministry's post-Cabinet meeting, here today.
The move will not affect quality as trainee doctors are only allowed to train at health clinics that have family specialists for six months before transferred to other hospitals.
Subramaniam said 30 health clinics have started the service since the last two months without any problems.
In an effort to prevent a glut of doctors, the Health Ministry is in talks with the Education Ministry to review the minimum qualification to study medicine.
He said presently, the minimum qualification is 5B in the SPM examination.
Some 14,000 students obtain A in all subjects annually.
"We have 37,000 doctors, including 6,000 specialist doctors and expect the figure to rise to 60,000 to 70,000 in five years."
The ministry has also stopped issuing licence for new medical colleges, new medical programmes and approval to increase the number of students.
Subramaniam said there are 33 medical colleges that offer 44 programmes nationwide that produce 2,900 trainee doctors in 2015 and 4,000 by 2019.
"Currently, there are 10,803 posts for house officers (HO) in the government sector and as of April 30 (2014), 90.3 percent or 9,760 posts have been filled.
"Based on this, only 5,000 new HOs can be employed yearly and on average about 400 posts monthly. Therefore, HOs are employed in phases subject to availability of vacant posts," he added. - BERNAMA