Malaysia to End Hiring of Foreign Doctors

Malaysia has suspended the hiring of new foreign doctors due to their incompetence, despite a chronic shortage of physicians in government health facilities, media reported Wednesday.

Health Minister Chua Soi Lek said the ministry would not be hiring an additional 600 foreign doctors this year as planned, due to many complaints about them, the New Straits Times newspaper and national news agency Bernama, reported.

More than 100 foreign doctors in Malaysia have been dismissed since 2002 for lackluster performance and dismal disciplinary records, Bernama said.

"They don't come to work. They don't have the skills, they can't communicate. Their performance is just not satisfactory," the New Straits Times quoted Chua as saying.

Malaysia's Cabinet in 2002 approved the recruitment of more than 1,000 foreign doctors to alleviate a shortage.

However, authorities have since terminated contracts for 118 of them, the New Straits Times said. Most of the doctors came from Pakistan, Egypt and India, Bernama said.

Labor groups have said local doctors were leaving government service because of meager salaries and better facilities overseas.

Chua stopped short of banning the imports indefinitely because there is still a shortage of doctors in Malaysia, especially in rural areas and in the states of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo island.

"We do not intend a freeze. Freeze means an official policy, which means that if we want to (hire foreign doctors), we cannot do it," Chua said, according to the New Straits Times.

A Health Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with policy, confirmed Chua's remarks as reported.