Plug Loopholes to Stop the Brain Drain

Many fresh pharmacy graduates have been lured away by companies and hospitals from Singapore even before they complete compulsory service in Malaysia.

If this problem is not taken seriously or tackled, Malaysia will not achieve the ideal pharmacist population ratio in the time planned.

A report published in 2008 by the Health Ministry put the ratio of pharmacists to population in Malaysia at 1:4,335. This is far from the ideal ratio recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), which is 1:2,000.

In order to meet the WHO target, the ministry enforced compulsory service on all pharmacy graduates from 2005 – a year of pre-registration training followed by three years of compulsory service in the government sector.

The Government also sponsored many students to study abroad in addition to the provision of higher education subsidies to support professional programmers at local public universities.