The Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) is aware of the problems faced by its registered medical practitioners in obtaining their annual practicing certificates (APCs).

As a result of the MMC’s corporatisation exercise in July 2017, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of APC applications received. Additionally, doctors in the public sector who were previously provided with the certificates free of charge are also now required to pay the APC fees. This increased burden of work has outweighed the capacity of the existing workforce in MMC which has led to delays in all phases of the processing of APCs which includes the verifying of data, confirmation of payment, keying-in of data, and the sending out of completed certificates. Problems with postage have further compounded the delay whereby approximately 50% of the APCs posted have not been received by the applicants (based on the number of certificates returned to the MMC undelivered).

During this crucial period, the newly corporatised Council is also undergoing significant changes including:

i.   Election and appointment of new Council members;
ii.  The interview, appointment and training of new employees to replace outgoing Ministry of Health staff;
iii. The process of procuring a new computerised system; and
iv. The improvement and enhancement of its communications systems.

To address this delay, all MMC staff have been instructed to assist in processing APCs. As a result, approximately 15,000 pending APCs have been successfully processed in the space of one month. The APC division has also been reorganised with a new Director and an increase in personnel.  To facilitate communication, the public is requested to contact the relevant MMC officers using e-mail addresses which have been put up on the MMC website. Furthermore, the Council has endorsed the use of e-APCs, which is equivalent to the hard copy of the APCs. Electronic certificates (e-APCs) in pdf format have been sent out and received by applicants provided that e-mail addresses given in the application forms are accurate.

All medical practitioners are also requested to apply for their APCs using the MMC’s APC-Online system to circumvent the manual process and therefore reduce delays. All concerned parties should accept the e-APC. If there is any doubt regarding its validity, the concerned parties may conduct a primary source verification with the MMC secretariat.

Thank you.

DATUK DR NOOR HISHAM ABDULLAH 

President, Malaysian Medical Council.

19 May 2018