Seputeh MP Teresa Kok has questioned whether the government is depriving top students places in public universities to study medicine in a bid to address an oversupply or doctors.
 
She said Health Minister S Subramaniam had told Parliament on March 17 that only a moratorium would be imposed on new medical courses to address the problem but did not mention anything about reducing places for existing medical courses.
 
"So why did Subramanian fail to inform Parliament about the reduction plans at public universities? Did he intentionally fail to provide full answers to Parliament?
 
"If the government feels that the reduction plan is necessary and correct, there is certainly no need to hide such plan from Parliament and the public," she said in a statement today.
 
She noted that Subramaniam had in March said there were about 37,000 doctors in the country with another 30,000 more joining the work force in five years’ time.
 
Kok's (left) remarks came amid several top students failing to obtain public university placement for their chosen medical programmes.
 
She pointed out that the places for medical students in public universities had fallen from 983 in 2011, to 875 in 2012, 699 in 2013 and 418 in 2014.
 
Kok questioned whether public university medical students were suffering due to an oversupply in the private education system.
 
" Is it not true that the existence of too many private medical schools is the main cause of oversupply of doctors?
 
"Should not any plan to reduce production of new medical doctors start with the private medical schools?" she said.
 
She also asked the government to explain whether its failure to build more hospitals had aggravated the problem of oversupply of doctors.