Nine nursing institutes closed this year
NATION
Saturday, 05 Oct 2019
By LOH FOON FONG
image: https://apicms.thestar.com.my/uploads/images/2019/10/05/310329.jpg
At crossroads: (From left) Azih and Siti Rabikhatun expressed concern over closure of the nursing schools, while Dr Lee said the Health Ministry still provides nursing diplomas.
KUALA LUMPUR: Nine Health Ministry nursing training institutes (ILKKM) have closed this year and 10 more are set to stop operating by 2021, says Cuepacs.
Its president Datuk Azih Muda, who sounded the alarm yesterday, said diploma-level nursing programmes will also be phased out along with the closure of the 19 ILKKM.
He said the remaining 14 ILKKM will only offer post basic nursing courses.
Azih said neither Cuepacs nor the related associations or unions were called in to discuss the matter.
“We are sad and disappointed that the government is shutting down the nursing training institutes, ” he said during a press conference.
Also present yesterday were representatives from some 16 nursing, health and medical associations and unions.
He said they did not know the rationale for the closure.
There is some concern, he said, that diploma-level nursing training might be outsourced to the private sector.
Meanwhile, 375 staff were affected by the closure of the nine institutes, of which 89 were nursing tutors.
One of the representatives, who declined to be named, said that there were no more nursing students at the nine institutes as they had all graduated.
Azih urged the government to explain the shutdown as the institutes had produced nurses that met international standards.
“We urge the government to stop the closure and reopen the nine that had been closed, ” he said.
He added that the staff who were affected had been transferred to ILKKM in other states, while nursing tutors have gone back to nursing or midwifery.
Some sources said the decision to close down the institutions that train diploma-level nurses were made even before the general election last year.
Separately, retired nurse consultant Siti Rabikhatun Mohd Zain said she had learnt the ministry was leaving the diploma programme to the private sector.
Siti Rabikhatun, who first started the country’s first nursing degree programme at Universiti Malaya (UM), urged the ministry not to stop the government nursing diploma training.
“The ministry should not stop training nurses because it produces better nurses than private medical schools that do not have hospitals to train their own nursing students, ” she said during the People’s Health Forum’s third round table discussion: “Human Capital for Health in Malaysia” recently.
She was referring to the nursing graduates lacking clinical practice and hands-on experience since they did not have a private hospital to practice while the ministry’s hospitals had limited slots as it had to cater to its own nurses.
Another source said there were talks that the Health Ministry may privatise its nursing college and future nurse intakes will be on contract and not hired as permanent staff.
“That means no pension scheme for them, ” she said, adding that all nurses from the ministry’s nursing colleges are currently permanent staff.
Currently, the ministry’s nursing students receive free education and allowance every month and are required to serve the government for four years.
However, perhaps in the future students may have to pay the government to study nursing, she said.
Nurses Union president Nor Hayati Abd Rashid said the public wanted the number of public servants to be reduced.
However, she adds that this is not possible in the healthcare sector in light of the growing population and technological needs.
“If you reduce the numbers, you will receive substandard care.
“We need people to come in and be trained in technology as well.
“In the overall situation, we need enough people to give satisfactory service to the public. In fact, we need more nurses, ” she said.
She said the union would not agree if nursing training was left to the private sector.
Meanwhile, Deputy Health Minister Dr Lee Boon Chye said it was not true that the ministry has stopped providing diplomas in nursing training.
“The ministry will continue to train nurses – diplomas in nursing and advance diplomas for specialised training – via ILKKM, ” he said.
However, the number of intake depends on the projected demand from the ministry, he said.
The planned intakes for diploma level nursing are as follows: for 2019 – 855 intakes, for 2020 – 673 intakes, for 2021 – 561 intakes, for 2022 – 454 intakes and for 2023 – 368 intakes, he said.
Dr Lee said that nursing courses by universities need to have Malaysian Qualification Agency’s (from the Education Ministry) approval in order for the graduates to be registered with the Nursing Board.
Registration with the nursing board is a prerequisite for them to be employed as nurses in the public or private sectors, he added.
He said that the ministry trains its own nurses and the number of nurses trained by ILKKM was more than enough to meet the ministry’s requirement, hence it did not need to employ nursing graduates from public or private universities.
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