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PUTRAJAYA: All medical graduates will need to pass their Bahasa Malaysia SPM paper before they can be employed as medical officers, including contract-based doctors.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam (pic) said this was the unanimous decision made by the Cabinet on Wednesday.
"The Deputy Prime Minister will be making the announcement on the Bahasa Malaysia paper on behalf of the Health Ministry today," he told reporters after the Cabinet meeting here.
Dr Subramaniam said the 23 given the relaxation were children of diplomats or parents who were Petronas and JPA scholars educated under a different system.
"The 23 were taken in as contract medical officers but will still have to sit for their Bahasa Malaysia paper while doing their housemanship," he added.
He said there was some confusion over the relaxation of the requirement as it only affected 23 housemen out of 4,500 contract medical officers employed by the ministry since December 2016.
Read more at http://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2017/07/05/subramaniam-cabinet-spm-pass-medical-officers/#5i3TeVZt64imJArM.99