Malaysian Medical Resources

Posts Tagged ‘Nursing’

We’ve added a new page linking Malaysian Nursing Sites (other than Nursing schools which are listed separately). The link can be located if you hover your mouse over the Professional link in the top menu of the MMR>
As usual, if anyone has suggestions for more links, please let us know.

We’ve updated the Private/Other page of links to include another website of a home nursing provider, Love on Wheels. You can read the write up in the Star here.

Added Melorita Home Health to the Private/Other services page of links together with the other Nursing services.

The NST recently had a feature article on this topic which reminded me about a blog post 2 years ago we made on More men want to be nurses

Patients are often surprised when Humaizie tells them that he is a nurse but not as shocked when they meet Humaizie’s superior, nursing sister Kho Kheng Siong. Kho might be a “sister” but he is also a male nurse.
Kho, 30, is one of University Malaya Medical Centre’s two male sisters.
His nursing rank of “sister” sometimes puts patients and their families in a spot as they do not know how to address him.
“The patients have no problems calling a female nurse ‘sister’ but with me, I suppose they find it a little awkward or even amusing. “Even some of the senior female nurses who report to me, have difficulty calling me sister.”

Seriously, they should not be called “Nursing sisters” but Nurse managers or something along those lines.
Nursing is not a “girlie” job anymore. It actually can be quite physical – try lifting a 100 kg comatose patient in ICU and see.

Let’s put an end to male nurse stereotypes!

Nice video on being a nurse (via Nywern on FB)

Received this today:

PSM Youth Wing as well as PSM Central Committee Member and Sungai Siput MP Dr. Jeyakumar today submitted a memorandum t the Higher Education Minister.

We, Malaysians are deeply disappointed with the failure of the High Education Ministry to control the private institutions that offer nursing courses. The ministry’s failure to control these institutions’ greed has established a situation in which thousands of its graduates are jobless. And yet, they are burdened with PTPTN loans of as much as RM 50, 000 to RM 60, 000. Here are the facts:
61 private institutions have been given the go-ahead by the Higher Education Ministry to conduct nursing courses; there are currently more than 37, 500 nursing undergraduates enrolled in these 61 private learning institutions. A large percentage of these undergraduates have acquired the PTPTN loan, normally around RM 55, 000:
the total amount of staff nurses employed throughout the country as of December 2010 were 61, 110. Of that total, 47, 992 were stationed in the government sector and the remainder 21, 118 in the private sector;
in 2010, 7, 665 nursing graduates from private institutions sat for the Nursing Board examination. Only 70.1% of them passed the examination compared to the passing rate of 98.4% amongst graduates from Malaysian Health Ministry colleges.

Only 42.7% of nursing graduates from private higher education institutions in 2010 succeeded in acquiring jobs at hospitals and clinics Taking all these facts into account, we wish to know the following:
1. Is the Higher Education Ministry that determines the intake quotas for nursing courses in private educational institutions in Malaysia? If so, what is the rationale for allowing an intake quota of 9, 000 undergraduates for the year 2011?
2. Is the Minister aware that every trained nurse must renew his or her professional license (APC-Annual Practicing Certificate) per year? One of the terms that is required to acquire the APC is an occupational status as a nurse in a hospital. Therefore, if one is unable to get employed as a nurse, he or she is not eligible to renew his or her APC.
3. Is the Minister aware that the marketability of a staff nurse will be adversely affected if she is unable to get a nursing post in a hospital? This is due to the fact that a nurse’s skills will deteriorate if the graduate is not given a chance to practice as a nurse.
4. Is the Minister aware that a lot of the graduates at nursing private higher education institutions originate from families that are not rich? They are hoping to get a job as a nurse in order to pay back their PTPTN loans and to aid their respective families.
5. Is the Minister aware that repayment of the PTPTN loan is required even if the graduate is unable to acquire a job as a nurse?
6. How many of the 61 private higher education institutions currently offering nursing courses have started or are applying to start medicine courses to train doctors?

Our demands:

a. Freeze the intake of new students into private nursing colleges. The market is flooded at this point in time. Do not burden more young girls with PTPTN loans that they will not be able to pay back.
b. Look into the other courses that are offered by the private colleges such as physiotherapy, health care, laboratory assistants, radiology and others. If there exists a similar situation of over-supply for these other courses as well, please freeze the intake of new students into these courses.
c. Reject applications of private higher education institutions to conduct doctor courses if the passing rate in the Nursing Board Examination was below 90% for graduates from those institutions in 2010 or 2009.
d. Take over the PTPTN debts for all nurse graduates who have not acquired a nursing post in a hospital despite passing the Nursing Board’s examination.
e. Conduct an investigation to determine why the market for trained nurses is flooded- 37, 500 will graduate in 3 years, whereas the need for nurses is only 1, 500 per year (more or less 5% of the total currently employed in the private sector). Is this because of poor judgment on the part of officials who determine the quota, or is corruption involved? The profits of private higher education institutions are immense!
f. Review the validity of the policy of relying on private companies to provide higher education for our younger generation. It is evidently clear from the actions of the private nursing colleges that maximising profits is their main focus! The existence of PTPTN loans have underwritten the income of these private higher education institutions, and they are currently competing to attract as many students as possible without a care whether they can provide adequate practical exposure to their students or whether there are sufficient job opportunities for their graduates.
We hope that the Higher Education Ministry officials will study the issues that we have brought up and fix a date within a month’s time to inform us of the steps that will be taken by the Ministry to manage the identified problems in this memorandum.

Link: Pictures of the event in the PSM Facebook page

Like the setting up of medical schools, it seems setting up nursing schools is big business in Malaysia, so much so that schools are mushrooming all over the country. We have already seen a problem of a glut in housemen and more worrying a problem of medical standards and training.
We should not be concerned with numbers but focus on standards. Without standards, numbers are meaningless.
I recall a senior radiographer lamenting the loss of two of her junior colleagues to that red dot down south. Apparently the red dot does not have radiographer training schools – their position is why bother when they can just hire the good ones from other countries? So setting up training schools is not the solution to the manpower (or womanpower) problem. The problem is retaining skilled staff. This means focusing on standards and methods to retain your good staff – better remuneration, working conditions, fair system of promotion and opportunities for career advancement and higher training. The main beneficiaries of all these nursing schools would be the businessmen who are reaping money from the trainees.

Spotted in the MOH website

2nd International Nursing Research Conference 2012

May 12 is International Nurses Day. On this day, do show our nursing colleagues the appreciation and support they deserve. On my part, I say a BIG Thank You to all the nurses out there.

I spotted this poster in the hospital lift. Nice one but I can tell you it’s posed. Nurse is real, patient is not 😉

Picture taken with a Palm Pre.

While nurses have been traditionally women, I do spot more and more male nursing students these days. I think it is a good trend. We could do with more man nurses – it’s tough being a 50 kg woman nurse trying to lift that 100 kg patient in ICU!
So on this nurses’ day, let me make a call out to the guys thinking of a career – how about being a Man Nurse? Yeah, Save a Life, Be a Man Nurse!

(nice video, terrible singing!)

Nurul writes in:

I am a student nurse at a private college in Johor and will finish my studies mid month on next year . Here, I want to know is there any chances for my friends and I to apply a job as a nurse although we are fresh graduate student nurse on next year at your hospitals.
If yes, could you please tell me how and if not, just a little help about how to apply works as a nurse would be kind . Lastly, thank you for your kind to read this message and I’m hope that I will get answers from you .

Hello Nurul. Thanks for writing in. We are flattered but we unfortunately don’t own any hospital. Nursing posts are however in demand and I am sure you should be able to get a job in any hospital in the country as long as your nursing qualification is recognised by the nursing board and you are not tied down by any bond/contract.

Relevant links:
The MMR has a list of private hospitals with web pages listed here.
For those thinking of taking up nursing as a career, here’s a list of Nursing schools.

We have added a couple of new links to the MMR:

Centre for sight has been added to the Eye/Lasik section in the MMR Private Clinics page

Home nursing providers added to the Nursing services section.
I think it definitely helps to have a Facebook presence as I spotted their page from a Facebook ad!