THE Ministry of Health’s (MOH) reassigning of nurses from clinics to wards is a good move that will optimise the use of nursing staff amid shortages of nurses at public healthcare facilities, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) said. 

Its president Dr Azizan Abdul Aziz said they commended MOH and the Health director-general for their progressive efforts and encouraged the commitment to efficient healthcare workforce distribution. 

“If well implemented, the reassignments may even significantly reduce the workload in some of the hospital wards affected by a maldistribution of healthcare workers – an issue that has been highlighted before by the MMA. 

“We welcome this effort by the MOH and hope for its smooth implementation. We hope the positions vacated as a result of the reassignments will be promptly filled to prevent any disruptions to services,” Azizan said.

She added that the importance of training must also be emphasised. 

Azizan said these shortages in healthcare personnel had underscored the importance of digitalising healthcare systems that would enable data-driven decisions as well as effective mapping and planning of healthcare human resources. 

“We acknowledge that there may be initial challenges in addressing specialty-specific demands; however, given time, we are confident of the ministry overcoming them.

“We believe data-driven decisions and real-time monitoring will be the way forward for effective planning of workforce placement.  

“The MMA believes that increased efficiency and productivity can be achieved through a digital system enabling data-driven decisions,” she said. 

Azizan said digitalisation would be crucial for both immediate and future planning of public healthcare human resources in ensuring healthcare services catered to community needs.  

Healthcare services should be planned in response to the needs of the population, not determined by the size of budgets or the number of posts created, she added. – January 9, 2024.