KUCHING, Dec 21: A total of 145 Sarawakians have been offered permanent posts as medical and dental officers in Sarawak by the Ministry of Health (MoH) from 2019 to 2021.
They consisted of 108 medical officers and 37 dental officers.
“From 2019 to 2021, 1,074 contract medical officers were offered permanent posts.
“From this total, 108 were Sarawakians and they were posted to Sarawak.
“Whereas 950 dental officers have received offers for permanent posts.
“From this total, 37 officers were Sarawakians posted to Sarawak,” the ministry said.
MoH was responding to a question by Senator Robert Lau on whether the ministry intended to offer more permanent posts to medical officers to Sarawakians as most of them prefer to serve in Sarawak.
The ministry explained that offers of permanent posts were given after officers completed their degree training or compulsory service and were offered to officers that fulfilled the criteria and terms of permanent appointments.
For the fulfilment of permanent posts in Sarawak, Sabah and the Federal Territory of Labuan, MoH expounded that it has made improvements by giving priority to residents.
MoH added that the government has created 10,675 new positions in various service schemes and grades at the ministry in phases for new health facilities operating for the period of 2020 until 2021.
From that total, 718 positions or 6.75 per cent have been created in Sarawak including 78 medical officers and seven dental officers.
The ministry added that it approved 6,647 new positions for new and upgraded health facilities which began operating from July until December 2021.
From that amount, 479 positions or 7.2 per cent were allocated for Sarawak, including 54 positions for medical officers and five positions for dental officers. — DayakDaily
