He said the Malaysian Dental Council (MDC), at a meeting yesterday, decided to re-recognise them as specialists and include them in the dental National Specialist Register (NSR) as quickly as possible.

“The issue involves the rejection of these specialists from being listed in the NSR under the Dental Act 2018,” he told the Dewan Negara yesterday.

“The MDC has agreed to allow the appeals by the dental specialists originally listed in the registry before the new act took effect.”

“The MDC will finalise the scope of practice for this eligibility by the end of September at the latest.”

The minister was responding to a supplementary question from senator RA Lingeshwaran, who highlighted the frustration experienced by about 20 dental specialists “removed” from the NSR after the 2018 amendments to the Dental Act were enforced in 2021.

He said the group includes several professors from Universiti Malaya’s dental faculty, with at least one initiating legal action against the MDC for non-recognition.

The dentist, who had been listed in the NSR since 2011, was removed in 2022, and his application for re-registration in 2023 was rejected.

Lingeshwaran said the MDC did not seem to understand the impact of not recognising these dental specialists, who had performed hundreds of surgeries and taught thousands of medical students.

In response to another question, Dzulkefly also assured Lingeshwaran that the position of the Malaysian Medical Council CEO would be permanently filled in due course, with details to be finalised before the vacancy is advertised.

“The senator had suggested that the post is very important and should be a Jusa C (principal civil service officer). I feel it should even be higher than what he had suggested,” he said.

The current acting CEO is a medical officer who has held the position for more than 10 years.