KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry (MOH) is in the process of preparing a projection on the number of medical officers that need to be appointed on a permanent basis.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the projection would be submitted to the Public Service Department (PSD) and the Finance Ministry.

"I'm not sure if we can absorb all of them who are under contract for permanent post, but we start with the projection on the needs first...I'm sure with that projection, we can work on how we can absorb them into permanent service," he said.

He was responding to a supplementary question from Datuk Seri Azizah Mohd Dun (Bersatu-Beaufort) during the Minister's Question Time. Azizah wanted to know the financial implications if the government were to appoint all contract doctors to permanent posts.

Khairy said since the end of 2016, more than 24,000 graduate training medical officers had been appointed on a contract basis, but only about 1,000 of them were offered permanent posts.

Meanwhile, through the tabling of the 2022 Budget, Khairy said the government had agreed to continue the appointment on contract of 10,583 medical, dental and pharmaceutical officers, involving an allocation of RM336.35 million.

He said out of the total, 4,186 officers had been evaluated and could be recommended to the PSD for permanent appointment.

They involve 3,586 medical officers, 300 dental officers and 300 pharmaceutical officers, and would require an allocation of RM377,485,089.

Apart from that, Khairy said the government had also provided RM100 million in sponsorship for specialist programmes that would benefit 3,000 medical and dental contract officers.

He said a Special Committee had also been set up to find a long-term solution to the issue of contract appointment , which included the need to amend several laws, such as the Medical Act and the Dental Act.