Part 2 - Reporting In

After a scrambling long drive from JKN, I finally arrived at the district PKD around lunch time. Two colleagues of mine, Y and N, were also stationed at the same district as I and we agreed to meet at the PKD office after 2 pm. When I arrived, they weren't there yet and I hadn't had my lunch so I wanted to go somewhere first to eat. Luckily, beside the PKD there is a Mydin mall building. I never saw a Mydin mall this big anywhere in the Klang valley - I know there's a huuuuuge one in Kuala Terengganu but this one was maybe 4 or 5-storey tall.

Anyway, I searched over the Google Maps and found out that this Mydin mall is the only mall-like structure in the town. Upon entering, I quickly realised that the only thing worth to be excited about this mall is the Mydin itself. The rest of the shops inside this "mall" are so.. disappointing. The town itself is quite a medium size one, actually, with blocks of shop lots that kind of have everything that you need. I counted a number of banks, restaurants, hardware shops, furniture shops, etc. But no malls. I saw one KFC franchise, no McDonalds, no Starbucks, no TGV or GSC cinemas (not even an MBO). But this town is the closest to Penang (is this a clue enough to guess where I am now?), which by my standard is similar to KL thus should offer me more of a city life that I am forever addicted to have.

Me hyping myself helplessly while my inner me just groan at this town

At around 3 pm, the three of us went to meet the boss of the PKD, Dr Z who is also a PKD. Not to confuse anyone here, but his title is the Pegawai Kesihatan Daerah of the Pejabat Kesihatan Darah here. He's so friendly and enthusiastic about us reporting in here. We were midway of listening to the introduction of PKD organization and filling out forms when more MOs came to report in as well. He was jubilant. In total, there's seven of us newly transferred here and they (the PKD people) were very happy in assigning us to the various KKs that are under this district's PKD.

There is a total of 10 KKs under this PKD and they are divided geographically into two and named as KK Laut and KK Darat respectively. I was assigned to this particular KK Laut (literally, my KK is very near the beach) because they needed a male doctor to balance out the doctors there. I did not have a say in this matter, unfortunately, unlike the rest of my colleagues. My face cracked a little and I felt myself showing a disgruntled face to my new boss - I told you I had this terrible poker face that is very much loathed by so many people. But I couldn't help it. This KK is so far to the west that it took me a solid 45-minute drive from my rented house (more on this in next blog post!).


You will be directed to a Pegawai Tadbir (PT) who usually is assigned to handle all MO-related matters. That person is the most important person that you need to remember when handling with matters related to the PKD, apart from your bosses. They will handle a number of things that need to be cleared out when first reporting in to a new place. In no order of importance, it include:

• delivering the letter from state JKN that says you are to serve at that particular district
• HRMIS update
• CPD points of the next year
• transfer claim
• new KKM ID (passport photograph required)

Of those, the most exciting part but equally exhausting to complete is the transfer claim. The PT will ask you for a screenshot of the kilometres travelled from your home to the state JKN, from JKN to your district PKD, and finally from your district PKD to your KK. They will also need a copy of Touch&Go transaction, the original invoice of the first three-day hotel stay, a copy of your car VOC (vehicle owner certificate), the letter from the JKN and the letter from SPA. They will calculate how much you can claim, taking into factor of your car type (mine is less than 1000cc, so it's a C class or something) and they will also include meal allowance.

"Finally, all documents are here!"

But once all those done and dusted, just wait for the claim process to be approved in a week. The claim is noticeably more than you had spent. It's more due to the fact that we do not take into account about the meal allowance, lodging and etc. I'm not complaining, though, cuz I need that money HAHAH. This whole transfer thing just sucked all my savings into oblivion. So, a word of advice, do a bit of saving 3-4 months prior your transfer!

It's funny how much screaming I have done whenever I went to the ATMs

Another very, very important aspect that you need to highlight quickly during reporting in is that to REQUEST FOR THE WHOLE FIRST WEEK OFF! Again, I remind you, this is very important. Know your right to request. I was fortunate to ask one of my ex-colleagues at my previous hospital about the whole process of transferring. He said that not all PKD or the KK allow for day-off request, which is totally absurd and cruel. He had to argue at the PKD and threatened not to come to work anyway if he was denied the off-days. He eventually got it. Imagine you just had travelled tens or hundreds of kilometres, even, and they had the audacity to ask you to work the very next day? You don't even know the area, you don't have any place to stay, where to find food, etc. So do the sensible thing - ask for the whole week off.


I quickly asked for the week off on behalf of all of us. We are lucky that there is no KK that operates past 5pm on weekdays and none have to work on weekends, so our weekends is pretty much untouchables. We were granted the whole week off except on Thursday and Friday as half day as we had to attend an orientation course for the monthly new staff transfer. That's cool.

After the business at PKD concluded, I decided not to visit my KK just yet. It was already late in the afternoon and I did not have any place to stay yet. A quick thinking and I decided to find a budget hotel to stay at Bukit Mertajam, Penang. I didn't care that it was far. I didn't care that I had to pay toll and had to suffer traffic jams. The sight of Starbucks, McDonalds, and Xin Fu Tang (even though I stopped drinking boba teas long time ago and never join the bandwagon) just somehow soothed my soul and calmed my mind. I found a sensible hotel there and booked for a two night stay. I had a quick dinner, showered and went to bed.


The next day then was the start of a brand new day which is The Hunt for a rental house. This will be covered in the next blog post, so that's it for now!


(read Part One - The Long Journey here)