For Future Doctors: 2020, the year of the Wawasan……………I have finally reached another milestone ……… as of 13/01/2020, my blog is 10 years old! Over the past 10 years, I have written hundreds of articles and even published 2 books from these articles! I probably achieved my wawasan by educating the public on what medical field is all about and how the world […]
I have finally reached another milestone ……… as of 13/01/2020, my blog is 10 years old! Over the past 10 years, I have written hundreds of articles and even published 2 books from these articles! I probably achieved my wawasan by educating the public on what medical field is all about and how the world is changing.
My last article was written on 24/12/2019, just before the new year started. It has been almost 5 months now and the world has changed. In just a short period of time, our lives have gone upside down and we are still looking at months down the line before everything comes back to normal. 2020 suppose to be the year where Wawasan 2020 should have been achieved, transforming Malaysia into a developed nation, but unfortunately we are in a mess with recession coming soon, if not already. We have had 5 months of political drama and a brainless RNA virus terrorising the world. Let’s start with where I left you on 24/12/2019……
Critical Allowance
Based on JPA circular dated 20/12/2019, critical allowance for all new appointments into MOH will be removed. As I mentioned in my article, it is rather unfair when those who are already in the system will continue to receive the allowance but the new ones will be without the allowance. I said unfair because everyone is doing the same job and same amount of work. It does not make any logical sense, while I did predict and expected the allowance to go one day when we have more body than post. Following this announcement, there were huge outcries from various organisation and members of the public. Thus, on 9th January 2020, this proposal was postponed for further review, scheduled to be updated by end of this year. REMEMBER, it is only postponed and not cancelled!
U41 Contract Renewal
As I have written in several articles towards the end of last year, the number of permanent appointments given out following completion of housemanship has been dwindling down from about 500 for the first batch(December 2018 cohort) to almost 0 in subsequent batch(May 2019). This is again not unexpected. KKM simply do not have enough post to offer everyone. The slides below is self explanatory…..
It is very clear that KKM do not have any post to even offer permanent positions. Thus, almost everyone will be given an extended contract which will be the final contract before you say sayonara to KKM. The issue of being offered U41 post instead of U44 has not been resolved either, despite promising to do so in November 2019 by the cabinet, KKM and JPA. The new contracts are still renewed at U41 as of April 2020. On 29th October 2019, I wrote this :
“The best is yet to come: those who receive extension of contract can remain at the same place where they were transferred as a floating officer! In another word (the way I interpret this), your life in civil service ends there within another year aka completing 4 years of compulsory service. It’s just a diplomatic way of putting it !”
Interestingly, this is now proven true when the newer contract renewals categorically says that ” this will be the last contract!” ………
So, basically whoever received the U41 contract extension of 2 years, after their 3 year initial housemen contract, have to start planning their future. I believe this clause was added after the Sarawak doctors debacle that was publicised widely in newspapers in January 2020. These were doctors who returned from overseas in 2017 and was given a 2 year contract to complete their compulsory service. Unfortunately , they were told that their contract would not be renewed. To be frank, no contract is permanent. A contract is a contract and the employer can decide not to renew your contract once it expires. It is the same in any profession including the medical profession. Even in private hospitals, the hospital can decide not to renew your contract if they feel they do not need your service anymore or simply, if they don’t like your face!. It has happened before and there is nothing you can do about it. There is a clear difference between ” termination” and “non-renewal of contract”. While the Sarawak doctor’s contract were finally renewed, to avoid any such scenarios happening again, JPA has now clearly stated the above clause in the newer contracts. So, now no one can claim ignorance.
What about those who received a permanent post? Again, they were given a U41 post! However, they were told that this is due to technical reasons. The U41 permanent post will be backdated to the day they started housemanship and soon, they will receive their promotion to U44 backdated to the day they completed housemanship. Whether this has happened with all the chaos that is going on now, I do not know! We shall wait and see.
In a sudden turn of events in April 2020, about 102 permanent post were created in Sarawak. This could be part of about 1000 post that suppose to be created over the next few years as I wrote in December 2019. So, about 102 of them were sent an urgent email early April 2020 offering them this permanent post in Sarawak and NO appeal will be entertained……..
Whether there is a political reason for this, I got no idea. Based on the report by Codeblue, about 28 of them declined the offer and decided to stay on their final contract appointments. We just have to face the fact that the government will never be able to absorb all graduates. With the current economic situation, the scenario will only get worst. No job is guaranteed in this world. What is happening in Malaysia, is also happening in many developed countries but at-least, these countries have a better control over the number of graduates being produced, unlike Bolehland.
COVID-19
The world is yet again faced with another Pandemic. I would say that this is the 4th viral outbreak I am facing in my 23 years working as a doctor. It started with SARS in 2003 followed by H1N1, MesCOV and now COVID 19. Facing these viruses or any infectious diseases are part of our occupational hazard. I know many doctors who have contracted infectious diseases and some even succumbed to the illness. So, those who think that doctor’s job is sitting in a cozy room and earning big bucks, please think again. We are not only at risk of being infected with a disease but also high litigation rate and verbal insults.
We may be considered as a hero at the moment for tirelessly facing this pandemic. But trust me, once all this is over, we will be back to square one. No one will even remember what you did. That is the reality out there. But COVID 19 also thought us a lot of other lessons. The Earth is breathing better and animals seem to be enjoying their life. We must understand that the entire ecological system on Earth lives in a balance. It evolved over millions of years keeping everything in an absolute balance. The very fact that we produce CO2 and plants converts it back to O2 proves this balance. BUT humans are always greedy. We feel we can do anything to mother earth and get away with it. I had always said this to my children ” Never play with nature, take care of it. If not, nature will always get back to you!” COVID 19 just proves how nature can get back to you. A simple brainless RNA virus can shut down everything on EARTH! Viruses have been around before humans came about. So, never play with nature. Stop destroying nature and learn to live in harmony. As Sir David Attenborough said in one of his famous documentary “ If you kill a whale in the ocean, the entire ocean ecology changes!” If there are no animals which eat insects, the world will be overrun by insects, which by the way have the highest population number in the world.
What else has this pandemic thought us? Good hygiene and social distancing keep doctors away! Many would have realised that there has been 70-80% drop in the number of cases attending private hospitals and GP clinics. Some GP clinics have even decided to close their clinic as their income has dropped drastically. It is better to close than to continue to maintain the running of the clinic. Private consultant’s income has definitely taken a beating. With lock-down, there were hardly any accidents. People were afraid to go to hospitals as they were worried of getting infected in the hospital. Social distancing, stay at home and good hygiene has drastically dropped the rate of infectious diseases like URTI, respiratory infections and gastroenteritis which generally forms the bulk of private hospitals admissions. Elective cases has also been postponed. It just shows that any job can be affected if something like this happens. It happens in all outbreaks but COVID 19 has been the worst. The only job which will continue to be not affected are civil service jobs! The government has no choice but to keep civil service running and paid. While you may end up taking a pay cut eventually, you will still get paid. In fact you will even get Raya goodies!
BTW, KKM has also offered 6 months contract jobs for those who are interested to be the frontliners. Specialist will be paid RM 12K/month and MOs will be paid RM 6K/month. I understand the offer is not available anymore. I heard some GPs did take up the offer.
Democracy
On 9th May 2018, everyone thought that Malaysia has woken up. In my article titled ” Towards Malaysia Baru?” on 4th June 2018, I wrote this
“With all the euphoria that we are having now, it is just too early to say how this new government will perform. Statistic shows that Pakatan only received 48% of the votes with BN & PAS taking 52% of the votes. Pakatan won in many areas due to split votes. PAS benefited from split votes in Kelantan and Terengganu. Personally, I feel that the Pakatan government is not really in a very stable situation. Tides can change by next election if they do not outperform the previous government by leaps and bounds.”
Again my words have come through! One of my friends told me to stop predicting anything as everything I predict seem to be happening again and again. The Sheraton move on 27/02/2020 and subsequent fall of PH is something I expected to happen sooner or later. The politics in Malaysia is as such. Everything is tied to race and religion. Whoever plays the right card, will win. Who cares about corruption and good governance? Whatever said and whatever mockery that has happened to Malaysian democracy, the country seem to be going downhill. Years of brain drain and racial politics will only take this country to the dungeon. With COVID 19, fall in oil price and dry coffers, we are surely heading into a recession and disaster. Never in world history I have heard of a 1 day Parliament sitting with nothing more than the royal address! It is the joke of the century.
After 10 years of writing this blog, I hope readers would have learnt something. My predictions are all based on facts and statistics. It is not rocket science!
Have a blessed Ramadan and SELAMAT HARI RAYA………………………. a different Raya I must say………….
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For Future Doctors: 2020, the year of the Wawasan……………
