Page 86 - MOH Supply and Needs-Based Requirement Hyperlink 02032021

EXTENDED EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 78

5. 5. CONCLUSION

5.1 Meeting Population Health Care Requirement

Government and stakeholders should aim to satisfy population health care requirement
based on need as compared to merely focus on demand to ensure Malaysia population
has equitable access to health care services. Some profession in this study (e.g. nurse) has a
wider gap in meeting the need and demand as compared to other professions. The presence
of a gap between HRH supply and requirement for their health services should be reviewed
together or compared to health care service performance. This is because; any shortfalls in
meeting patient’s safety and quality of care may have a direct or indirect relationship to HRH
as HRH is the most important ‘tool’ in health care services.

5.2 Addressing Shortages and Potential Oversupply

To ensure the quality of service delivery as well as patients’ safety, strategy to address the
undersupply of dentist and nurses need to be in place. Since it takes three (3) to five (5) years for basic
training of HRH not including additional professional training for registration and/ or competency
purposes, relevant stakeholders need to continue to strengthen HRH planning which includes;

• Reallocation of a task. Task shifting and/ or re-allocation between nurses and AMOs
with re-focusing of nursing roles in inpatient care to minimise the significant gap in
supply and requirement of nurses.
• Initiative to retain trained HRH in the country to reduce the number of trained HRH
serve in a foreign country.
• Recruitment of foreign-born HRH to serve in Malaysia in a limited period of time,
while waiting for the “production” of HRH to pick up. Drastic measures to increase
the locally trained HRH to meet health care needs or demand in short period shall
not be considered as this may create additional long-term challenges to control
the potential oversupply and poor quality of HRH.
• Re-employ and encourage re-entry into the workforce among professionally
inactive and retired HRH.
• Create more post or job opportunity for HRH to meet the population’s health care
needs and demand

As for the potential oversupply in some professions such as doctors and AMO’s, relevant
stakeholders, namely the Ministry of Education and local training institutions should review
and amend the total number of students intake accordingly. This will directly influence the
number of graduates and increase the probability to gain employment. Besides that, it will
indirectly improve their quality by ensuring better students to trainer ratio as well as optimal
training opportunity during basic education in the in early years of their professions.

SUPPLY AND NEEDS-BASED REQUIREMENT PROJECTIONS OF MALAYSIAN HUMAN
RESOURCES FOR HEALTH USING SYSTEM DYNAMICS APPROACH 2016 - 2030