RM30. This is the allowance that is used in Malaysia's Flying Doctor Service and bringing medical teams to where they are needed, where they can be accessed by the people.
And the rate dates back decades.
Since then, the cost of nearly all products has altered. The allowance hasn't.
The RM30 question has now become even more uncomfortable, after the latest helicopter crash in Sarawak that involved a Flying Doctor Service team.
But this is not really about RM30. It is about what RM30 represents.
It represents a system that can depend on doctors' sense of duty while being painfully slow to recognise the demands placed on them.
It represents the dangerous assumption that because doctors chose a profession of service, they will simply absorb whatever the system throws at them.
Longer working hours. Cover for others. Wait for specialist training and career progression.
And, at the same time, keep going.
Why? Because they are doctors and they care. And, people need them.
But here's the question nobody seems to ask often enough: who is fighting for them — the doctor working beyond reasonable hours, the young medical officer wondering when — or whether — a permanent career will materialise, the specialist covering an understaffed department, the doctor sent into remote areas where providing healthcare is itself a logistical challenge?
Who fights for the doctor who says, "I'm tired," without wanting to be labelled weak or uncommitted? And who fights for the doctor who finally says, "I've had enough"?
Yes, medical associations, professional bodies and doctors' groups have repeatedly raised concerns but are their voices loud enough?
And, more importantly, is anyone in power listening?
Doctors are not particularly good at fighting for themselves. Doctors keep giving. The system keeps taking. Until the doctor leaves.
Then suddenly everyone discovers there is a shortage.
Malaysia has spent years talking about retaining doctors.
Perhaps we should start talking about protecting them, their time, their safety, their career progression, their professional dignity and from being reduced to numbers on a staffing spreadsheet.
Because when doctors leave, patients do not simply lose another employee.
They lose experience, expertise and continuity of care.
And the doctors who remain inherit even more work.
The public sees the queue.
Six hours in an emergency department.
Three months waiting for a specialist.
A postponed procedure.
A crowded clinic.
Patients have every right to be frustrated.
But behind every queue is a workforce.
And behind that workforce is a doctor who may already be doing the job of two people.
Maybe three.
The doctor who looks tired is not necessarily indifferent.
The specialist who cannot see you today may be covering another understaffed service.
The medical officer who takes longer with your case may be trying to make sure one mistake does not change your life forever.
And the doctor who eventually leaves may not have stopped caring.
The system may simply have stopped giving that doctor a reason to stay.
That should frighten us.
Because you cannot manufacture a specialist overnight.
You cannot replace years of clinical experience with a recruitment advertisement.
And you cannot rebuild trust with another press statement.
The government has taken steps to address manpower shortages and permanent appointments. Those efforts matter.
But recruitment is only half the equation.
Retention is the other half.
And retention requires more than a job offer.
It requires doctors to believe that the system is worth staying in.
Which brings us back to RM30.
Nearly five decades is a very long time for an allowance to remain untouched.
But perhaps the bigger question is why it took so long for anyone to seriously question it.
And that is why the RM30 should be the beginning of a much bigger conversation.
About workloads, specialist training, career progression, staffing, safety and dignity.
And about whether the people who spend their working lives caring for Malaysians have anyone prepared to fight just as hard for them.
Because a healthcare system cannot be judged only by how it treats its patients.
It must also be judged by how it treats the people caring for those patients.
We cannot keep calling doctors heroes when we need them and second-class citizens when they ask to be valued.
So, who is fighting for our doctors?
Perhaps it is time we stopped assuming someone else will.
Because if nobody fights for the people holding up the system, eventually the system itself will come crashing down.