Vision To Bring Health Services To Higher Level
By P. Marilyn

Bandar Seri Begawan - "The Ministry of Health needs a workforce able to generate positive changes, with new ideas, innovative and creative, has the ability to deal with new technologies and with vision to bring health services to a higher level.

"With proper workforce planning, there will not arise a situation where there is a mismatch between skills and job scope, underutilisation of workforce, a job position being filled up by under qualified staff, redundancy and braindrain," said Pehin Dato Haji Suyoi bin Haji Osman, Minister of Health.

"It is hoped we are able to optimise the investments made to generate a qualified and skilled workforce, minimise wastage of work force, increase productivity and at the same time the morale of employees," he added.

He spoke yesterday during the launch of the two-day Health Career Exhibition for students. It provides detailed information on the job scope and career fields available under the Ministry of Health, and the academic requirements and relevant courses needed.

"Students are the source of workforce in the near future. We want the students to be able to make informed decisions when they have chosen their career in health services later on. The scope and types of career in the Ministry of Health are numerous," the Minister said.

"The Ministry of Health, accountable for the health of the residents of Brunei Darussalam, has strategic plans to increase the quality of health care services and to expand the scope of existing services.

"This is in line with the challenges that the ministry faces such as changes in epidemiological diseases from contagious diseases to chronic and non-contagious diseases, changes in demography whereby there is an increase in the life span of the elderly, costs of health care and impact towards various technologies.

"Other challenges include the emergence of new diseases and the re-emergence of controlled contagious diseases, development of biotechnology, biomedical and information technology.

"All of these call for a workforce that can fulfill the needed requirement, not only in terms of academic qualifications but also in terms of dedication, commitment, responsibility, honesty and trustworthiness," the minister said.

The minister used the example of a doctor, who, apart from possessing knowledge and high clinical skills, also needs to have a high degree of professionalism, good leadership quality, good work ethics, compassion, the ability to communicate with patients of different backgrounds and with co-workers as well as commitment to continued professional development.

"However, other positions in the ministry are also of important because other fields of work such as scientific officer, radiographer, nurses, medical record officer, dispenser, therapists and even ambulance driver are needed to assist the doctors and specialists in their daily work," said the minister.

"The Ministry of Health has more than 5,000 workforce and 360 positions. Eight per cent, equal to 473 people, are specialists and doctors, and 32% or 1,800 are nurses, 14 per cent or 800 are allied health professionals and the remaining 46% or 2,527 are staff in administration, management and operations.

"Looking forward, in five to 10 years time, there will still be a shortage in each particular field that needs to be filled up in order to boost the quality of services offered," he said. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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