‘Tolerated and even expected’: what drives workplace harassment in Malaysia’s healthcare sector?

WORKPLACE HARASSMENT MORE SEVERE IN HEALTH CARE?

Experts say workplace harassment is a universal problem that is not limited to health care.

Although previous studies do not show a higher prevalence of harassment in the healthcare sector than in other sectors, experts believe that it could be more pronounced or severe in the healthcare sector due to a high-pressure environment where patients’ lives are at stake.

Factors such as heavy workloads compounded by labor issues and lack of support systems contribute to rampant harassment, they say.

The number of health ministry employees fell by about half between 2019 and 2023, from 6,134 to 3,271, according to official data reported by The Star newspaper earlier this year.

The shortage of cardiothoracic surgeons – 14 in the seven public hospitals where cardiac surgery is performed in Malaysia – was also highlighted in July, when four graduated from a “parallel” training program with the Royal College of Surgeons Edinburgh in cardiothoracic surgery have applied for a joint judicial review to challenge the Malaysian Medical Council’s decision to reject their applications for registration in the National Specialist Register, a database of specialist doctors in the country.

In previous reporting, experts have highlighted the need to address the doctor shortage and warned of the potential impact on patient care.

Dr Tay’s death came about two years after a Penang General Hospital employee allegedly committed suicide after being bullied at his workplace.

At the time, the government formed a Healthcare Work Culture Improvement Task Force (HWCITF) to investigate the 25-year-old’s death, as well as allegations of a widespread culture of bullying within its health services.

It lists bullying, isolation, defamation, misgendering, inflammatory language, harassment, unfair pay, unfair work hours and unfair workload as types of bullying.

In its report released in August 2022, the task force found no strong evidence of workplace bullying in relation to the cleaner’s death. But he noted that burnout, harassment and an unhealthy work culture were present within the Ministry of Health at different levels, but not in all health facilities.

The report also surveyed more than 110,000 health ministry workers. Around 30 percent admitted to experiencing burnout while 7.5 percent felt they had been bullied at work.

About a quarter of the more than 20,000 management or supervisory level respondents admitted to bullying in the workplace.

Of those who admitted to being bullied, about 20 percent said they had been victims of “severe” bullying, while the remainder said they had been involved in “mild” bullying.

The report, which says the Health Ministry has around 250,000 employees, also highlights a significant shortage of doctors, nurses and other health workers, particularly in rural areas, which face excessive workloads. leading to stress and burnout.

In a separate survey of 728 doctors last year, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) found that 30 to 40 percent of doctors in the country had experienced some form of harassment.

The survey also found that victims are more likely not to report out of fear or do not know how to do so.

In comparison, a 2019 study found that almost 40 percent of Malaysian employees had experienced workplace harassment.

The study, titled “Workplace bullying and psychological distress of employees across socio-economic strata: a cross-sectional study”, surveyed more than 5,200 people from 47 organizations in Malaysia and was published in the BMC Public Health magazine.

This is believed to be the first to report the prevalence of workplace bullying and its association with socio-economic factors and psychological distress among a large sample of Malaysian employees recruited from multiple organizations.

The study did not identify the organizations or industries they belonged to, but found that those who had been bullied at work were specifically associated with being female, higher income and lower greater psychological distress.