A total of 2,233 community nurses will be promoted to staff nurses and redeployed to hospitals next month in a move to ease an ongoing shortage, the Dewan Negara was told.
The health ministry said nurses, all of whom have completed conversion courses, will be promoted from grade U1 (RM1,500 to RM4,680) to U5 (RM1,791 to RM5,791).
“We have so far retrained 6,310 community nurses, including the aforementioned figure.
“The others have all been redeployed to hospitals and other health ministry institutions to ease the shortage of nurses,” the ministry said in a written reply to Senator RA Lingeshwaran last week.
Midwives and Community Nurses Union president Nurul Janah Yusof told FMT that the affected nurses stand to gain salary increases of between RM400 and RM600.
She said the nurses started receiving their appointment letters via email yesterday, asking them to report to their new workplaces on Oct 12.
She said the long-overdue move would boost career prospects for some of the country’s 18,000 community nurses while helping ease hospital staff shortages.
“We have appealed to the government to upgrade all of them in a one-off exercise, which will be of big help to the hospitals. These are very experienced nurses who can easily fit into the roles in hospitals.
“The existing retraining process is extremely slow and can only accommodate about 50 people in each course. This is because many of them can’t be released for courses as it will affect the day-to-day operations in rural clinics. Many will retire by the time they are sent for the courses,” she said.
Nurul added that community nurses could continue serving in their rural roles even as staff nurses, as their work remains vital for rural healthcare.
She thanked Lingeshwaran for pushing their cause in Dewan Negara and constantly highlighting their plight to health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad.
Community nurses serve in remote areas, providing primary care such as deliveries, pre- and post-natal services, health education and family planning.
