Are there more than enough doctors in Malaysia?

The answer will depend on who you ask: if you ask a certain cardiologist and rheaumatologist then we have more than enough. If however you ask the director general of the Ministry of Health in Malaysia then the answer is no. But let me posit to you that both are the wrong answers to the wrong question. Both are merely playing with the numbers game.

Malaysia will be hitting the target of 1 doctor to 400 persons in few years time and some say we have already reached that target but what does that mean? Germany has 1 doctor to 300 persons but do they claim that they have enough doctors? On there contrary they are still complaining about the lack of manpower. You see this is what happens when you ask the wrong questions; nobody is any wiser. Everyone is arguing among themselves, getting all worked up and hurt, and thinking that they are right when in actual fact both are right and wrong at the same time. Lets get to the fundamental facts:

1. There are more than enough doctors of dubious quality and work attitude.
2. There are more than enough house officers in the big popular hospitals.
3. There are not enough house officers in the so-called 'unpopular' ones.
4. There are not enough senior doctors to train and supervise the junior ones. 
5. There are not enough sub-specialists to train more sub-specialists hence the long waiting period for even subspecialties that are experiencing acute shortages.
6. There are more than enough specialists and sub-specialists in the private sector and you can see the action of some to protect their rice bowl.
7. There are not enough specialists and sub-specialists in the government sector leading to overwork, burn-out and finally them quitting government service.

As you can see both parties are asking the wrong questions and giving the wrong answers. This is why both parties seem to think they are right when both are wrong at the same time because half of the facts support their position but the truth is the other half don't. To improve our health system we have to stop reinventing the wheel and look at more advance nations such as France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Denmark to learn from their mistakes and successes. These are not just any countries. These are countries with high satisfaction ratings from the people and also highly rated by the WHO. I address some of the things we can learn from there countries in a future posts but suffice to say we should stop asking the wrong questions and start asking the following:

1. Do we have enough doctors that we can give patients an appointment within three months fro their follow-up?
2. Do we have enough specialists so that everyone is seen by a specialist at least once a year?
3. Do we have enough cardiologists so that EVERYONE including those who cannot pay is at most one hour away from a catheter lab?
4. Do we have enough endoscopists so that everyone who needs a scope for a suspected bleed gets it on the day itself and not some unspecified time in the future?

There are more questions but I think you get what I am trying to get at. It is idealistic and maybe a tad unachievable but if we don't set high standards how are we going to achieve progress. Remember the best students don't compare themselves with the the ones from the bottom of the class like what our political elite do, they aim to be number one or close to it. They don't aim for a pass or compare themselves to Zimbabwe; they aim for 90%, they aim for A1, they aim for a gold medal and even if they don't achieve it in one semester, they persevere and aim to move up the rankings every year until they are near the top in the end. That is progress.