About 1.9 million elderly Malaysians are battling against aches, pains and other ailments daily but there are just nine geriatricians in the country to care for them.

This is scarce comfort for these elderly Malaysians aged 60 and above. According to experts, there should be one geriatrician for every 4,000 elderly person.

The Health Ministry is actively encouraging doctors to pursue geriatrics because the number of elderly persons will be increasing in the future — 7.3 per cent of Malaysians will be above 60 by 2010 and almost 10 per cent by 2020 and 11 per cent by 2025.

"We need doctors and healthcare staff trained to handle the ageing population," said Dr Noorimi Murad, the ministry’s medical development division director, told reporters at the opening of an Asia Pacific Geriatric Conference at KL Hilton yesterday.

The conference, jointly organised by University Malaya, Health Ministry, Academy of Family Physicians and Hospital Kuala Lumpur, has attracted more than 500 participants from the Asia-Pacific region.

Dr Noorimi said under the Ninth Malaysia Plan the ministry will upgrade the facilities at the district hospitals to cater for basic geriatric care, including rehabilitation.

There are now two geriatric units — one each at the University Malaya Medical Centre and Kuala Lumpur Hospital. Visiting consultants visit Hospital Seremban and Hospital Banting weekly for geriatric rehabilitation services and clinics.

It is learnt that there is a geriatrician in the private sector.

Malaysia formulated the National Policy on Ageing about 10 years ago and since then the relevant sectors and agencies have come up with several initiatives for the care of the elderly.

University Malaya Medical Centre director Professor Datuk Mohd Amin Jalaludin said they were planning to introduce a Masters programme in Geriatrics next year.

"Our aim is to get more doctors and allied health staff into the field of geriatrics." 

Prof Amin said programmes to prevent the elderly from being inflicted with old age diseases should be drawn up.

In his opening speech at the conference, Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said an ageing population would present new challenges for public health in most developing countries including Malaysia.

Worldwide, the proportion of people aged 60 years and above is growing faster than any other age group.

In the year 2000, there were an estimated 600 million people aged 60 years and above .

By 2025, this would double to about 1.2 billion people and by 2050 there will be two billion .

Dr Chua, whose speech was read by Noorimi, said there were more than 20 developing countries in which life expectancy was 72 years and above.

Among these are Costa Rica (77), Cuba (76), Jamaica (75), Sri Lanka (73) and Malaysia (72).