KUCHING. June 11 2026: Recruiting of up to 15,000 nurses from Indonesia to fill up 18 per cent of the vacancies in Malaysia is not the solution, but a public admission of system failure, Sarawak rights activist Peter John Jaban reminded Putrajaya.
He called on the federal government to stop outsourcing the country’s national healthcare security to cover up its refusal to pay local workers a living wage.
He also called for an immediate freeze on recruiting foreign nurses and halt any government-to-government agreement with Indonesia until a comprehensive, transparent review of local nurse retention and wage revision is presented.
He also called for an immediate granting of health autonomy for Sarawak, saying that if Putrajaya cannot afford to pay nurses a competitive regional wage, devolve full financial and administrative healthcare powers to Sarawak so the state can implement its own specialized civil service wage scale.
Peter also called for the implementation of a mandatory 35% market-incentive allowance for local nurses working in high-pressure public hospitals and rural Borneo clinics to match regional economic realities.
“If Malaysian nurses are good enough to anchor the world-class hospital systems of Singapore, Saudi Arabia, and Australia, they are good enough to be paid a thriving wage at home.
“Putrajaya must stop using foreign labour to suppress local wages,” he said in a statement.
He said Malaysia does not suffer from a shortage of talent, but from a severe shortage of political will.
“Our locally trained, world-class nurses are fleeing to Singapore and the Middle East in droves.
“They are not abandoning their country; they are fleeing financial starvation. When a fresh Malaysian nurse in a public hospital is expected to survive on a base salary of roughly RM2,600 to RM3,500 while enduring brutal 24-hour shifts, it is not a career but it is exploitation,” he moaned.
“Across the causeway, Singapore lures them with RM12,000 to RM17,000 a month, while Dubai offers up to RM18,000 tax-free,” he said, blasting Putrajaya’s move to bring in 15,000 foreign workers instead of fixing the leaky bucket.
He said the move is an insult to every local medical graduate who has been forced to look abroad just to afford a middle-class life.
Peter accused the federal government of being completely blind to the realities of Sarawak’s need for more trained nurses.
“Importing Indonesian nurses might satisfy the commercial greed of private medical tourism hubs in Kuala Lumpur or Penang, but it will do absolutely nothing for the critically understaffed, underfunded rural clinics of Kapit, Baram, or Lawas.
“Under the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63), health is supposed to be a shared responsibility, yet Sarawak continues to be treated like an afterthought.
“We do not want a two-tiered system where our local nurses burn out training foreign replacements while being paid fractions of what their skills are worth globally.
“If Sarawakian youths are given the right incentives, fully funded localized scholarships, and a dignified regional wage scale, we can staff our own hospitals,” Peter.
It was reported that Indonesia was prepared to supply up to 15,000 nurses to Malaysia to help address a critical shortage of healthcare workers.
New Straits Times quoted Indonesian Ambassador to Malaysia Raden Mohammad Iman Hascarya Kusumo as saying that the matter was discussed during a bilateral meeting with Indonesian Foreign Minister Sugiono on the sidelines of the 17th Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation meeting in Indonesia last week.
Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan was previously reported as saying Malaysia is considering Indonesia's proposal to expand placement of Indonesian healthcare workers, particularly nurses.
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