Page 15 - Nursing Education in Malaysia

2/ Historical dEvElopMENt NursiNg iN Malaysia

For many years now, the production of nurses has become a competitive venture
among businessmen. The nursing shortage is being seen as a numbers game. To win
the game, with its current rules, the more the nurses they can produce, the closer they
will be to winning the game. The fastest way is to take in as many students as the
colleges can possibly take. As crudely put by Ford (2009), nurses are “being pumped
into the healthcare system as water might be pumped into the fire”. The question is,
will these numbers put out the fire, that is, fix the shortage?. Temporarily, maybe.
More importantly, will these numbers add to the improvement of healthcare, or the
caring that nurses have been entrusted by society to provide.

In response to all of these, the Minister of Higher Education in April 2010 stated
that “the mushrooming of private nursing colleges will soon be a thing of the past.
Applications to set up new institutions will not be accepted from July”. He continued
to say that institutions of higher learning should concentrate more on degree courses
(The STAR, 27 April 2010).
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Around the same time in April 2010, the Minister of Health stated that “Medical
services in Malaysia are heading for major improvement with better services,
particularly at the clinical wards, as more graduate nurses are roped in to serve at
these facilities”. According to him, public universities currently are producing 415
graduates yearly and 1,760 graduates by private universities (The SUN, April 2010).

2. In June 2010 (New Sunday Times, 26 June 2010) the Minister of Health announced
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“a temporary freeze of nursing courses by July 1 … to cap the number of diploma
courses offered by private and public institutions”. Accordingly, the Minister stated:
“The Cabinet has agreed that a moratorium be placed on new nursing courses and
institutions. This is to make sure the current institutions place importance on the
quality of the courses and the performance of students”.

The Minister further affirmed that the next aim was to focus on degree nurses because
“We want to improve the quality of nurses in the country”. But what the Minister is not
aware of is that some graduates of public universities, with the exception of JPA scholars,
are not hired by government hospitals. These graduates are now looking at other avenues
including the private sector and foreign countries. Currently, UIA, UNIMAS and UKM
graduates are employed by Prince Court Medical Centre Kuala Lumpur and hospitals
in Singapore. A private organization in Singapore is now seeking to hire degree holder
Malaysian nurses to serve Singapore hospitals.