Its deputy director-general, Datuk Dr S. Jeyaindran, said the ministry was aware of the problems in the industry and will embark on several steps to address the issues.

“We’re focusing on restructuring the healthcare industry, including housemanship training to optimise job opportunities and healthcare quality,” he said.

“The blueprint will include restructuring patient-doctor ratio, patient-bed ratio, working hours and streamlining the profession.”

The plan will be released in due time.

Once finalised, the new structure would ensure medical graduates working opportunities, Dr Jeyaindran said.

“Previously, there was no blueprint for manpower in the health sector but we will amend it to ensure it is in sync with the education ministry’s medical programmes,” he said.

The ministry and Malaysian Medical Council had completed a study on the number of medical students that can be trained annually. The number was derived on international norms based on the ratio of medical students to patients.

“We have reviewed hospitals which can be designated as teaching hospitals. This is to ensure adequate facilities for optimal training and also for patients to be given respect and not be over-used for teaching purposes,” Dr Jeyaindran said.

“We will fix the maximum number of medical students in each hospital and nationwide.”

He said the ministry was addressing the situation in a rational manner instead of causing undue anxiety among parents and medical students.

“We need to ensure junior doctors have adequate exposure to training opportunities to ensure clinical competency and to produce quality doctors. We also want to ensure that we have the right number of doctors with adequate and competent training to produce quality healthcare,” he said.

“The doctor-patient ratio currently is at 1:4. We intend to change it to 1:3.33 in a progressive manner so that doctors would spend more time with their patients.”

Dr Jeyaindran said figures revealed many housemen chose to become general practitioners (GPs) or were uncertain which areas to specialise in. This contributed to the influx of medical students.

“Housemen entering their second year to become GPs will be attached to primary care clinics nationwide. This would resolve the influx,” he said.

“We are also looking at various international healthcare structures to find a suitable model that would fit our nation’s medical needs.”