MORE than a hundred junior doctors are reported to have encountered issues with the government’s eHousemen (eHO) system, used for the placement of permanent doctors. This is expected to lead to manpower shortages in certain states’ healthcare facilities; affecting the delivery of care to the public. The states affected include Sarawak, Selangor, and Melaka.
A number of doctors pursuing specialisation were also transferred to healthcare facilities which did not have the department related to their specialisation and this will affect their postgraduate training.
There were also numerous complaints on technical issues when using the eHO system. Many doctors applying for their placements faced system errors and crashes, causing them to reapply multiple times over.
The Malaysian Medical Association’s (MMA) Section Concerning House Officers, Medical Officers, and Specialists division conducted a brief survey regarding the recent eHO system of placement of permanent doctors.
The following is an overview of the results that we obtained as of 11am on June 23, 2023 from a total of 154 doctors who responded to the survey:
Postgraduate pathway affected
Sixty-eight of respondents (44%) had passed a parallel pathway paper or taken a MedEx exam.
Of the 68, 56 doctors (82%) did not get the placements they wanted. Some of the comments given indicated that these doctors were already in a postgraduate pathway but were forced to transfer halfway. Transferring such doctors will jeopardise the production of specialists as it will affect postgraduate training.
“After excelling in my MedEx paper in my current department and planning for postgraduate training I am now told to transfer to another hospital which does not have this department – affecting my future,” said one of the affected doctors.
Healthcare service affected
A total of 126 doctors (82%) did not receive the placement they wanted. Out of these 126, 110 (87.3%) are currently in positions such as being a registrar, coordinating house officers, and operating independently (surgeries and bedside procedures). This sudden movement of experienced doctors will affect services in that healthcare facility as new doctors that come in have to be trained from scratch.
System errors
Multiple respondents stated that there was a severe lack of manpower in their healthcare facility, but it was not reflected in the eHO system. States such as Selangor, Melaka, and Sarawak which have healthcare facilities that need more manpower were not available to be selected.
There were also multiple complaints of system errors and crashes forcing respondents to wait for the website to reload before being able to make their choice.
Suggestions
MMA is aware of the shortcomings of the current eHO system and calls on the Human Resources Department in charge to:
1. Compile and release a complete list of all healthcare facilities in the country with numbers of doctors needed (and currently working) to ensure transparency in the transfer process
2. Formulate a system that gives priority to doctors with parallel pathway papers/MedEx papers to ensure that training of new specialists is not affected
3. Fix issues like website crashes to ensure that fair opportunity is given to all doctors to make selections. – The Vibes, June 23, 2023
Dr Muruga Raj Rajathurai is president of the Malaysian Medical Association
