The review, the first in 20 years, would take effect next month, said Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek, Thursday.
He said with the review, specialists' allowance for "active call" of over 16 hours continuously on a working day was raised from RM75 to RM150 while the allowance on a weekend and public holiday was raised from RM113 to RM170.
All categories of doctors on "passive call" and were recalled to come to work for over four hours on a working day would receive an allowance of RM90, instead of RM45 while the allowance on a weekend and public holiday would be RM100, instead of RM68, he said.
He said the allowance for "passive call" of less than four hours on a working day was raised from RM23 from RM50 while that on a weekend and public holiday was raised from RM34 to RM55.
Dr Chua said medical officers on graduate training would also receive higher overtime allowances.
Those on duty outside normal working hours of over 16 hours continuously on a working day would get RM100. The allowance on a weekend and public holiday would be RM110.
The overtime allowance previously was only RM25, he said.
He said the review was approved during a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Salary chaired by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi recently.
-- BERNAMA
The gomen continues to believe in adhoc, piecemeal, stop gap measures to deal with problems faced by its agencies. This is how it appears to many with the latest measure to deal with problems in its health delivery system. Will raising call allowances deal with the problems affecting gomen doctors? There will be some initial "elation" with the proposed increase, which for the 1,000 house officers amount to some 400%. But will it result in more doctors joining gomen service as was claimed by a house officer in this STAR report? The MMA, of course, welcomes the increase, but will this lead to a reduction in the number of gomen doctors leaving service? The answer is obviously NO to those questions. The MOH certainly does not believe that money is the root cause of doctors leaving service. There is more to it.
Only a Royal Commission can effectively deal with the problems the MOH and its employees are facing now and in the near future. There has been no major revamp of the health services for years. Its policies on staff recruitment and retention have to be look into. Better conditions of service have to be formulated. It has to look into balancing the ethnic composition of its staff and ensuring that there is merit promotions. Just raising allowances will keep some of the doctors happy for an initial short period but the larger problems prevail.
Only a Royal Commission can effectively deal with the problems the MOH and its employees are facing now and in the near future. There has been no major revamp of the health services for years. Its policies on staff recruitment and retention have to be look into. Better conditions of service have to be formulated. It has to look into balancing the ethnic composition of its staff and ensuring that there is merit promotions. Just raising allowances will keep some of the doctors happy for an initial short period but the larger problems prevail.
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