Govt Slammed For Failing To Boost Healthcare Manpower

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Medical personnel are overworked and suffering from burnout, says Dr Lee Boon Chye. (Bernama pic)PETALING JAYA: Former deputy health minister Dr Lee Boon Chye has hit out at the government for failing to boost human resources in the public health sector despite facing the Covid-19 pandemic for more than a year.
Speaking to FMT, he said the government should have built up its capacity for efficient contact tracing.
“If every close contact can be identified, tested and isolated within 48 hours, the daily cases can be brought down quickly.
“Contact tracing is the single most effective measure to contain the pandemic,” he said.
Dr Lee Boon Chye.Lee had previously urged the health ministry to hire 10,000 workers to help conduct contact tracing, saying they could be made up of unemployed graduates and those who had lost their jobs because of the pandemic.
Commenting on a proposal to treat Category 1 and 2 patients at home, he said this might alleviate the patient load on public hospitals and quarantine centres but might not have been necessary if Putrajaya had addressed the “core issue” of manpower.
He also said low-risk quarantine and treatment centres were still the best option for Category 1 and 2 patients because treating them at home would expose their families to the risk of infection.
Meanwhile, Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president Dr Subramaniam Muniandy urged Putrajaya to let private hospitals treat more non-Covid-19 patients so that the public health system could focus on Covid-19 cases.
Dr Subramaniam Muniandy.He said the management of these patients could be outsourced for a “fair fee”.
He called for the use of all available resources in every state and suggested that private general practitioners be roped in to help in mass testing.
“We have also proposed that housemen awaiting posting, medical students, nursing students and medical assistants with basic medical knowledge help with contact tracing and some administrative tasks,” he told FMT.
“There is an acute shortage of manpower in our government healthcare. Medical personnel are overworked and suffering from burnout and this can affect the system and standard of care.”
Subramaniam said treating Category 1 and 2 Covid-19 patients at home would help lighten the load on healthcare workers, but he added that they must be closely monitored.
He said a patient’s condition could worsen in less than a week after the first appearance of symptoms.- FMT

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