PETALING JAYA: Around 2,148 housemen were appointed to public healthcare service in the first half of 2024 through three recruitment rounds, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.
“The Health Ministry had conducted three series of recruitment comprising 701 officers in the first round of appointments, 803 in the second round and 644 in the third,“ he said during the Dewan Rakyat session today.
Housemanship training is conducted at 49 hospitals nationwide, including state, specialist, teaching and military hospitals except district hospitals as they lack specialist services.
He added that all housemen entering the Health Ministry’s service have been appointed under the contract scheme since 2016.
Dzulkefly said there has been a decrease in house officer appointments over recent years.
He further said the number of housemen serving the ministry has halved since 2019, correlating with a decrease in medical school graduates.
The numbers peaked at 6,139 in 2019 from 4,924 in 2018 but post-pandemic figures dropped to 3,245 in 2022 and 3,265 in 2023. He also noted that this decline has affected houseman training programmes.
He said the housemen from the first two recruitment cohorts this year were assigned to state and university hospitals, allowing the strategy to provide them with diverse clinical experiences while supporting hospital operations.
“However, after taking into account the views aired to the ministry, policies have been reviewed related to the placement of house officers to major and minor specialist hospitals in phases and this will depend on the appointment of new housemen,“ he was quoted as saying.
To address this decline, Dzulkefly said the ministry is increasing housemanship slots from 10,835 in 2013 to 12,198 in 2024 and also aims to improve the doctor-to-population ratio from 1:412 in 2022 to 1:400 by 2025.
He added that the ministry is also finalising healthcare worker appointment policies through the Human Resources Reformation Programme and stressed the importance of collaborative efforts to attract students to medicine, citing the profession’s competitive grades, salaries, allowances, and opportunities for specialist training.
