I hope your readers and the Malaysian public have not forgotten the plight of house officers (HOs) or young trainee doctors who are:

1. Forced to work non-stop for 36 hours, be on-call duty for 24 hours and need to continue with another 12-hour shift of regular, routine duties.

2. The extension of the period of their houseman-ship from the previous one year to two years now.

The voice of our grouses and protests died down totally after:

1. Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai announced that trainee doctors would now get a day off after carrying out their 24-hour on-call duty; and when

2. Health Ministry Director-General Dr Ismail Merican announced an automatic promotion for us to grade UD44 upon completion of the two-year houseman-ship period.

The above two measures were wide reported in the media when they were announced late last year.

But the situation for trainee doctors on the ground in hospitals around Malaysia is totally different. It seems that the black hand of the ‘big Napoleons’ in the health ministry are at work to destroy the true spirit and intention of the above two measures.

They are acting like powerful local mafia warlords to sabotage the health ministry’s top two officers’ public announcements.

Now, house officers are discouraged from resting after 24 hours of duty by the following regulations_

1. If you take a day off after 24 hours of duty, the RM100 overtime fee is forfeited. How is it we are not entitled for the overtime we have already worked? The 16 hours of overtime just disappears.

(Yes, we all know that house officers are forced to work for 12 hours every day without any overtime payment. We all accept this as part of our training but anyway, our normal working hours must be eight hours only.)

2. If we choose to rest after 24 hours of duty; we are punished by being told that we have not fulfilled the expected length of working hours in a particular ward and as such an extension period, some times for months, is slapped on us.

This irresponsible extension by the medical authorities has caused much resentment amongst HOs and it also affects other HOs who need to do more on-call duties because of the disruption to rosters and schedules.

3. The prospect of getting the much-hyped automatic promotion to grade UD44 upon completion of the two-year houseman-ship in 2010 by house officers in government hospitals is now also dashed by the need to sit for examinations.

So there is practically no improvement to the working conditions for HOs and there is much discontent amongst them especially when they feel that the health ministry authorities are just providing lip service or twisting their tongues for political reasons only.

If any one of us tries to fight back, there is a danger of blacklisting and definite powerful revenge from the ministry’s authorities who are acting like big mafia gangsters.

The incoming new cabinet should look into these kind of problems created by ‘big Napoleons’, not only in the health ministry but in almost every ministry. They who always act like mafia warlords to sabotage the government’s official announcements and policy guidelines.

Proper rules and regulations are good but these should not degenerate into bureaucratic red tape that will have a negative effect on the image of the government.