DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang claimed that there is hardly any difference in COVID-19 containment and mitigation in the first one month of Khairy Jamaluddin taking over the Health Ministry (MOH).
“Apart from introducing a new website, there is still no sign that Malaysia will be out of the woods in terms of COVID-19, with data still showing disturbing numbers,” he said, in a statement today.
After Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob ascended the premiership, he appointed Khairy as the new Health Minister and moved his predecessor, the gaffe-prone Datuk Seri Dr Adham Baba to the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry (MOSTI).
It is to note that since taking over MOH, Khairy had enacted several measures such as sharing granular data on COVID-19 outbreak with states, something the latter have been calling for since the start of the pandemic.
The Rembau MP had also revealed that there were severe backlogs in reporting COVID-19 deaths and promised to clear the matter within weeks. The measure has triggered higher daily reported deaths so that MOH could clear the backlog.
Khairy had also capped the COVID-19 rapid test kit to RM19.90 despite protests from several quarters.
Long-lasting solutions needed
Targetting the minister, Lim said that COVID-19 death tally has been exceptionally high in the last one week, with some days even surpassing fatalities in India.
“We have beat China in both daily new COVID-19 cases and deaths. Yesterday, we beat Indonesia and India in daily coronavirus deaths.
“Yesterday, we also ranked number eight in the world’s daily new COVID-19 cases and world’s number four in daily fatalities,” the Iskandar Puteri lawmaker noted.
With that, Lim urged the former Khairy to improve Malaysia’s capability to contain COVID-19, adding the health experts he had spoken to voiced reservation on Malaysia’s health strategies.
He added that the former Umno youth leader should also come up with a decision on how to resolve the plight of contract medical officers (MO), as allowing them to sit for postgraduate exams alone would not suffice.
“What about other details like training posts, longer tenure of contracts, possibility of a permanent posts in future?
“Make no mistakes about it. There will be more pandemics in the future and we need more specialists. This would also be a good time to seek more budget for healthcare and MOH,” Lim remarked. – Sept 19, 2021.
