THE full reopening of the country’s borders will allow medical tourists to return to Malaysia for their medical care which has been on halt since early 2020, said Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia (APHM) president Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh.
While welcoming the National Recovery Council’s (MPN) recommendation for the country’s borders to be fully opened from March 1 without the need for mandatory quarantine, he also said that it would further help revive the country’s medical tourism industry.
According to news reports, Malaysia’s medical tourism industry generated RM1.7 bil to the country in 2019.
Dr Kuljit went on to note that the association has 151 member hospitals throughout the country with a majority of them treating medical tourists, particularly from the neighbouring countries.
“However, private hospitals will strictly adhere to all standard operating procedures (SOPs) set by the Health Ministry (MOH) on the screening of medical tourists before accepting medical tourists for treatment,” he said in a statement.
“We will accept fully vaccinated medical tourists with a booster dose (preferably) so that there is lesser risk of them falling very ill should there be a COVID-19 infection during the course of treatment and further to protect our local health care providers.”
On Tuesday (Feb 8) MPN chairman Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said that the council has agreed that the nation’s borders were to fully open as early as March 1 without the need for mandatory quarantine.
Meanwhile, Dr Kuljit also noted that private hospitals in this country are ready to accept decanted patients from public hospitals should there be an unlikely surge of Omicron patients in government facilities.
He said during the Delta COVID-19 peak last year, 113 private hospitals received out-sourced patients from 49 Ministry of Health hospitals.
“We are confident to continue our support to the government to ease the burden as mentioned by the Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin in his speech on the Feb 7,” he remarked.
“Private hospitals have been included in the National COVID-19 Rapid Response Task Force (RRTF) to facilitate this process,” he said. – Feb 9, 2022
Main photo credit: Malay Mail