Malaysia is witnessing an exodus of nurses to overseas jobs paying three or four times the starting salary at home, prompting warnings that low wages and poor conditions are hollowing out essential healthcare services. The country has just one nurse for every 283 people – missing the WHO’s target of one per 225 – as overcrowded public facilities, critical shortages of healthcare professionals, and a widening disparity between public and private care drive trained nurses overseas.
The Malaysian Nurses Association (MNA) says there are more than 117,000 registered nurses in the country, but they must care for up to six patients each in understaffed wards, coupled with high expectations from patients expecting preferential care. “Their welfare is not cared for, with many having to do double duties because of the shortage that led to detrimental effects on their mental health,” Saaidah Athman president of the Malaysian Nurses Union (MNU), told This Week in Asia. She said these considerations had been the leading factor behind the job exodus, adding that nurses could earn monthly salaries up to the equivalent of 25,000 ringgit (US $5,592) overseas in modern hospitals – as opposed to a starting wage of about US$600 back home. In neighbouring Singapore, nurses can expect to earn four times as much as they do at home, at about S$3,300 (US$2,450) a month.
Saudi Arabia has emerged as a popular destination for Malaysia’s migrating nurses. A 2023 report by the Japan-based Institute of Developing Economies found that more than 80 per cent of overseas Malaysian nurses chose to be based in Saudi Arabia. Melorita Healthcare, a Malaysian-based healthcare recruitment agency, is advertising nursing jobs in Saudi Arabia with wages of up to 12,000 Saudi riyals (US$3,200), tax-free.
The challenges Malaysia’s nurses face are not unique. Speaking to This Week in Asia in Kuala Lumpur on November 20, Howard Catton, CEO of the Geneva-based International Council of Nurses, said the global nursing shortage was estimated at 6 million even before the pandemic. “The added pressures of Covid-19 only accelerated retirements and burnout,” Catton said.
The nursing shortage in Malaysia is projected to become critical, with estimates indicating a nearly 60 per cent shortfall by 2030. This statistic is concerning for Malaysia as it is already an ageing society, with 11.6 per cent of its 34 million people being older than 60. By 2030, that figure will swell to around 5.8 million, or 15 per cent of the population. Catton said nurses were essential for the health needs of an ageing population, the growing number of communicable diseases, end-of-life care issues as well as health prevention and promotion. “To deal with any health challenges, you’re not going to achieve any of the ambitions without your nurses,” he warned.
While the median monthly salary in Malaysia is 2,844 ringgit (US$640), nurses are only paid about 2,708 ringgit a month. Those employed by the health ministry have a starting salary of just 1,797 ringgit, a wage closer to the country’s minimum wage of 1,700 ringgit.
“At that low level of salary, if somebody from another country comes and says, ‘Come and work here,’ and we’ll pay three, five times more, you’re at risk of losing them,” Catton said.
SCMP
