THE Health Ministry (MOH) must ensure a whole of society approach in its planned reforms for the nation’s healthcare by engaging with stakeholders before it drafts its white paper on healthcare reforms.
As such, the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) is glad to hear that Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin is in the midst of preparing the White Paper on healthcare reforms to be tabled in Parliament soon. We are eagerly awaiting for the stakeholders’ engagement on this as there has been none so far.
Khairy has mentioned that the White Paper will include improvement in service terms to the customers, which are the people of this country. This is important as after all, healthcare is for the people and the health services do need to be people-oriented.
Moreover, Khairy is looking at the welfare of the ministry’s staff, which is another crucial matter. In the past two and a half years, many Government healthcare workers had gone way beyond what is expected of them in terms of carrying out their duties.
The ministry’s staff indeed deserve the accolades accorded to them. They have truly served this country and deserve outstanding service awards.
We hope that apart from Government healthcare workers, the minister will also recognise the contributions made by the private sector as well, without whom it would have been near impossible to make it through the early phases of the pandemic.
Many in the private sector had taken it upon themselves to volunteer their services to assist in the management of the pandemic. The public-private partnerships forged should be addressed in part White Paper as well. — April 3, 2022
Dr Koh Kar Chai is the president of the Malaysian Medical Association.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
