TO all politicians: please refrain from commenting and trying to show your concern for the junior doctor who died recently in Penang from apparent suicide. Do not politicise the issue.

It is not that the public does not have empathy. Any life lost is a concern for everyone. Until an investigation is conducted and the results revealed, please shut up. There are competent authorities investigating. Let them do their job without interference.

Your contribution is not needed and any utterances from any of you presently is of no value. It merely reveals your character as an opportunist with no idea of how to help the people except to nitpick on issues with the objective of staying relevant in the eyes of voters.

Solutions offered such as setting up counselling units for the juniors to reducing the workload are insensitive. Such proposals mean having to hire of additional staff for the unit and for the workload to be taken off existing workers. Both require additional costs at the expense of taxpayers.

Politicians would not feel the pinch as the monies are not taken from their government allocations.

After the junior doctors, next will be who else? The nurses? The ambulance drivers? The pharmacists? All of them have been silently working under the same stress, bullying and long hours in silence. Did any of the politicians talk about helping them out?

Politicians should come down from their ivory tower and talk to people in the real world. Which job and which industry has no stress? And which industry has more stress than another?

Ask people in the audit industry. The engineering and architecture firms. The construction companies. The legal firms. The logistic companies. What about migrants doing the dirty, dangerous and difficult jobs?

I can bet you employees in every organisation in every industry will tell you life is hell too. Impossible deadlines to meet. Superiors who refused to listen and are demanding. Clients who are not cooperative. Low salaries. Job scope involved menial and degrading tasks for a university graduate.

Are politicians focusing on this because doctors are held in high esteem above others by virtue of their title?

Their profession is no different from others despite the advanced qualifications they have. Junior staff in every profession enter the workforce as apprentices to their more senior colleagues. The more advanced qualifications one has, the greater the pressure the junior employee has to appear competent and to prove themselves. Throw in some strong personalities on both sides and conflict appears.

The public will think that with such challenges, the juniors would band together to offer support to each other. It never happens. With fierce competition for prized promotion, peer support is almost non-existent due fears of giving up any room for advancement. The competitive environment serves to isolate the junior employee, leading to a setting where the latter receives little validation or support for the work they perform.

Juniors are always saddled with overtime and extra workload until they can work their way into a more senior position. Only then they can pass the overtime and extra workload onto their juniors.

Yes, human resource experts will tell you that supportive leadership and the environment it creates is important in increasing and maintaining individual and team morale in any organisation or industry.  But conversely an absence of this support strongly correlates to increased individual and team distress too.

Of course the answer to this complex problem involves both culture change at a system or organisational level and enabling junior employees to build leadership skills early in their career and remain resilient while completing their time as a junior worker in the organisation and industry they are in.

Politicians may not admit it but they are part of the problem. They are in a position to legislate and do something about the stress and burnout at workplaces, but they have failed in their duties.

Over and above that, politicians expect priority and preferential treatments from those they seek their services from, be it from the medical centres, hospitals or other services.

Bullying from the seniors?

What makes politicians think they can resolve this issue when they and the government as a whole, can’t even resolve bullying in schools? Schools are where we teach and build the characters of the young and it is much easier to impart in these young people the necessary moral character for them to be a better person.

Yet at this level, all politicians have failed or neglected in their duties to do so.

Why don’t the leaders start by actively engaging in looking at how to eradicate bullying at schools before addressing bullying in the workplaces?

The country has already seen bullying and abuse of migrant workers or maids by their employers. It appears innate in some of us. Regardless of their background, nationality and nature of work they are hired for, they are no different from each of us. They are human beings too.

Yes, they might be paid lowly and do menial tasks shunned by Malaysians but they do not deserve to be treated with disrespect. Where do they turn to when they are bullied? How do they handle severe stress from their employers?

Until all of us treat each other with respect and decency, stress and bullying at workplaces will be there forever.

If this is not fixed, brain drain will happen. It has been happening for the last 30 years.

Do you think politicians REALLY care? They are just paying lip service to this issue. Instead of addressing brain drain, resources are instead spent on trying to seek the return of those who have left by setting up Talentcorp.

To the politicians, stop pretending you are naïve that such things still happen. It is partly due to your inaction and failure in discharging your duties that has led to the present deterioration. – May 10, 2022.

* FLK reads The Malaysian Insight.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.