PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry will be taking the necessary steps to address the shortage of medical assistants in the country to ensure the public especially those in rural areas are not deprived of basic health services.
Its minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the shortage was particularly in rural areas adding that those in Sabah and Sarawak were reliant on medical assistants.
"It is important to have enough medical assistants as in some health facilities, it is the medical assistants who perform the doctors’ role," he said in his speech during the national medical assistant celebration here.
He revealed that there were a total of 11,469 medical assistants nationwide.