Health Minister to offer scholarships for anesthesiology

The Health Ministry is offering 84 scholarships a year from next year for doctors keen in anesthesia in its effort to overcome the shortage of specialists doctors in the discipline.

Deputy Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya said the move was among the strategies of the government to narrow the ratio of anesthesiologists and patients from 1:45,000 to 1:30,000 by 2030.

"We are definitely short of anesthesiologists in the Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care because the ratio in Malaysia is 1:45,000 whilst the benchmark for a developed nation is 1:10,000.

"We have allocated 84 scholarships a year for doctors keen to study in this field because we are trying to meet the target of 2030 of 1:30,000," he told reporters after opening the 2014 National Anesthesia Day at Taman Botani Perdana here on Saturday.

Meanwhile, touching on the Ebola virus, Dr Hilmi said the government would continue to monitor students from the African continent, specifically from Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone in the effort to curb the spread of the plague here.

"We screen new students, who go back for holidays and return here over 21 days..we monitor all. If there are signs of fever, we straightaway investigate," he said.