Let Sarawak hire its own doctors, nurses: Dr Sim

KUCHING: Putrajaya should delegate administrative powers to Sarawak to allow the state to address the critical shortage of doctors and nurses on its own, says Datuk Amar Dr Sim Kui Hian.

The Deputy Premier said Sarawak currently has 5,654 vacancies in its health workforce, equivalent to about 18 per cent of the total workforce.

He said he will follow up with the Health Ministry (MoH) on Sarawak’s health autonomy, particularly on allowing the state to employ doctors and nurses to fill the existing vacancies.

“If Malaysia is short of medical staff, Sarawak is critically short of medical staff.

“Once we tackle the existing 5,654 vacancies, then we can sit down on the additional 11,000 staff that Sarawak needs following the human resources audit by MOH against the norms.

“Just delegate the administrative power to Sarawak. We will show the Sarawak way of getting things done,” he said in a Facebook post yesterday (Sept 23).

His remarks followed a courtesy call by Manipal University College Malaysia (MUCM), led by its vice-chancellor Prof Dr Jayakumar Gurusamy.

Dr Sim, who is also the Public Health, Housing and Local Government Minister, said the meeting included discussions on potential collaboration with MUCM to address Sarawak’s shortage of house officers.

He described the discussion as timely, given the shortage of medical personnel in the state and the vacancies that remain to be filled.

He noted that MUCM has been operating in Malaysia since 1993 and has produced more than 6,000 doctors.