PUTRAJAYA (Jan 24, 2012): The government will soon table an amendment to the Medical Act 1971 to corporatise the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) – a move aimed at addressing concerns of declining medical standards in the country.

Health Deputy Director General (Medical) Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told theSun recently that once the amendment is passed, the MMC will be a professional body responsible for maintaining medical standards in the country, and more significantly, for performance monitoring of doctors.

The amendment is expected to be tabled when the Dewan Rakyat reconvenes in March.

"The corporatisation of MMC is to emulate the General Medical Council (GMC) in the United Kingdom, where it functions not only to set and monitor standards of the medical profession, but also the competency of doctors registered with it," said Noor Hisham.

GMC is a fee-based registered charity which maintains a register of its medical practitioners, and functions to protect public interests by ensuring compliance to medical standards.

Noor Hisham said the monitoring of doctor's performance is the way forward for quality healthcare.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai told theSun that the move is to make the council more efficient in its daily administrative work, as well as free it from government bureaucracy.

"MMC is growing by leaps and bounds, it has registered around 35,000 doctors now, so we have to look into making MMC more efficient and not tie it down with government bureaucracy or circular," said Liow.

He added that corporatising the council will ensure that it operates as a stand-alone, independent professional body, akin to the Malaysian Institute of Accountants, the Bar Council and the Institute of Engineers Malaysia.

Under the purview of the Health Ministry, the MMC currently functions under the same principles as the GMC, and also acts as a disciplinary body for the medical profession.

A long serving member of the council, who is also a senior doctor in a public hospital, told theSun the move will resolve the occasional conflict between the functions of the council as the 'whip' of the medical profession, and its role as advisors to the Health Ministry.

"The very fact that the council is funded and run by the ministry, there will be some conflict of interest between the two," the doctor, who declined to be named, said.

He said there were also occasionally some difficulties for the MMC to exercise its disciplinary roles, especially when involving ministry-employed doctors, though he did not give specific examples.

"The move has of course been welcomed by the MMC, and hopefully with its corporatisation it will receive more funding, be more efficient, and able to function independently and with professionalism," he said.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian Medical Association also welcomed the move, although it admits that it was not consulted on the matter.

"However, the move is a good as it will make the MMC an independent body and there will be no potential conflict of interest, since currently the Health Ministry director general is also the chairman of the MMC," said MMA president Dr Mary Cardosa.

She added that in the interest of good governance, the MMC must have representatives from all stakeholders who will be responsible for the registration of doctors and maintenance of standards of practice and ethics among doctors.

However, Cardosa disagreed that there may be an increase in fees paid for annual practising certificates (APC) with the corporatisation, and that it may be passed down to patients. Doctors in private practice currently pay RM50 per annum.

"Currently government doctors have their APC fees waived, but even if the APC fees are increased, it will not burden the patients as the fees are not high, and doctors' fees are closely regulated by the law," she said.

The medical standards in the country have come under scrutiny of late, as claims of poorly-qualified housemen, dipping standards in medical education and overcrowded hospitals flood the media.

TheSun, last November, front-paged concerns by senior doctors over the poor quality of some housemen, due to the proliferation of medical schools which produce sub-standard graduates.

Sources had said the situation may be worsened by the government's decision to quash a proposal to abolish the list of 365 recognised overseas foreign universities, and make it compulsory to pass the Medical Qualifying Exam before practising medicine here.

The government instead directed that the list of recognised universities be shortened and reviewed more frequently, and Health Director General Datuk Seri Hasan Abdul Rahman told theSun last month that the list may be slashed by as much as half to maintain standards.