PETALING JAYA: DAP’s Dr Kelvin Yii has called on the health ministry and public services department to reconsider slashing the regional incentive payment (BIW) allowance for doctors and pharmacists who transfer to East Malaysia.
The Bandar Kuching MP said the government should revert to the Malaysian Remuneration System (SSM), where allowances were based on a percentage of an officer’s salary.
He said even under the old framework, Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan had struggled to attract and retain medical professionals.
“Such steep cuts will just aggravate an already dire situation of insufficient medical professionals in Sabah and Sarawak, jeopardising the quality of care for our patients,” he said in a statement.
He added that recent statistics revealing that 43% of medical officers were no-shows for permanent postings in Sarawak this year should raise alarm about the country’s “critical situation”.
Yesterday, CodeBlue reported that newly-appointed medical officers or those eligible from Dec 1, 2024 would receive a smaller BIW allowance than their seniors for transfers to Sabah, Sarawak or Labuan.
Under the Public Service Remuneration System, which replaced the old SSM for the federal civil service on that date, the new BIW rate was reduced to a fixed monthly rate of RM360 for Grades 9 to 15 of the management and professional group.
The move was criticised by the Malaysian Pharmacists Society, which asked if such cost-containment measures reflected the realities faced by healthcare professionals willing to relocate and serve in Sabah, Sarawak and Labuan.
Sarawak needs more doctors
Yii said Sarawak had a doctor-to-population ratio of approximately 1:510 – about 1.96 doctors per 1,000 population.
In comparison, he said the national average was approximately 1:406, or 2.46 doctors per 1,000 population, meaning that Sarawak had roughly 21% fewer doctors per capita.
“To match the national average, Sarawak would need hundreds more doctors, especially specialists. Such policies not only don’t help, but may send the lack of medical personnel situation in the region to code blue,” he added, referring to the term used by hospitals to signal a critical medical situation.
