HOURS before junior doctors go on strike, Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah has appealed to them not to abandon their duties and walk out on patients.
 
“To our junior colleagues on contract post, I urge all of you, please do not join the demonstration and abandon your duty to your patients. Remember many lives are on the line and the demonstration could affect their lives and even your career. 
 
“I wish to remind all that patients’ safety is our priority. Remember the oath we took sincerely and be there for your patients at the time when they and the country needed you the most. We are the last bastion of defence to make a difference to our patients and every life matters,” he wrote in a Facebook post tonight.
 
He reminded the junior doctors that patients taking priority over all was an oath doctors took at the start of their journey as doctors which was primum non nocere –  first do no harm or injustice to our patients.
 
Dr Noor Hisham said the Ministry of Health (MOH) understood that the junior doctors wanted to continue serving the ministry in a permanent post.
 
He noted that last Friday, Putrajaya had announced a two-year extension of the contract position for junior doctors.
 
“This is to give time for the amendment to be made to the Pension Act so that permanent positions can be allowed (to be employed with EPF), i.e. without pension option,” he said in the post.
 
Dr Noor Hisham said Putrajaya will allow those in contract positions to continue studying for their masters and will offer them permanent EPF positions once they are available.
 
Some 4,000 to 5,000 doctors nationwide are expected to take part in the strike  tomorrow, a representative of the Hartal Doktor Kontrak group said last week.

Monday’s strike will start with a walkout by junior doctors at 11am.

Dr Umar Baraka said doctors from Sungai Buloh hospital, one of the main treatment centres for Covid-19 patients, will also take part in the strike.

This will throw the public healthcare system into chaos as there are currently more than 145,000 active Covid-19 patients.

“We have no choice. We will go ahead with the strike on July 26 at all health facilities nationwide. We did a survey and found that around 4,000 to 5,000 doctors will take part in the strike,” said Dr Umar, who was accompanied by some 20 doctors in an online press conference held via Google Meet.

“It (the strike) will take place in Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital in Kedah, Hospital Taiping and Ipoh, Hospital Sultanah Aminah and Hospital Sultan Ismail in Johor and Sungai Buloh Hospital among others,” the representative said

The strike comes against a backdrop of rising Covid-19 cases and mounting deaths..

Today, a record-setting number of 17,045 new cases was reported, pushing Malaysia’s national caseload to 1,013,438.

Selangor accounted for the bulk of the cases with 8,500 infections. This was followed by Kuala Lumpur with 2,045 cases, and Kedah with 1,216 cases.

The country reported 92 fatalities today, bringing the death toll to 7,994 cases.

Dr Noor Hisham told Sinar Harian today that Malaysia will reach the peak of Covid-19 transmission in mid-September with 24,000 cases a day.

He said that based on projections presented by the Ministry of Health, the infectious rate (RT) is set to be 1.2 by then.

He added that cases are projected to continue rising, with an expected toll of 17,000 cases daily by mid-August.

However, daily infections are likely to fall below 1,000 by October, he said. – July 25, 2021.