THE Malaysia Health Coalition (MHC) have urged the Government to buck up and start cooperating with all layers of authorities if it wants to contain the spread of COVID-19.
“There are many lessons to be learnt after one year struggle with COVID-19. We urge the Government to continuously improve our healthcare system, avoid the blame game and keep the people informed of its long-term plans,” it said, in a statement.
Two days ago, the Government announced that the movement control order (MCO) would be extended until Feb 18 due to the soaring number of cases on the country.
However, the decision did not bode well with industry players, with a group of them coming together under the “Industries United” platform to condemn the MCO extension, adding that it will crush businesses and cause massive unemployment.
Touching on the pandemic, MHC said that the Government should strengthen coordination between federal and state government agencies, on top of roping in the private sector to battle the pandemic.
While it lauded the Government’s move to seek the cooperation of private healthcare facilities in the matter, MHC said the Government should not wait until the last minute to broker a working deal.
“There must be proactive cooperation at all levels of Government, to ensure all stakeholders are contributing to the national pandemic strategy,” it said.
Following that, MHC urged the Government to provide context to the daily COVID-19 tally in order to paint a comprehensive picture on what is happening among the public.
“The people are reliant on the daily COVID-19 update provided by the Health Ministry (MOH) but the numbers are void of context. We cannot know the true extent of the pandemic or the capacity of our healthcare system from the little information that is provided.
“The Government must ensure that such information empowers the rakyat and does not cause panic. We reiterate our call to improve health data transparency as in the past,” MHC added.
The health coalition then urged the Government to continuously improve its pandemic management systems consistently, instead of blaming anyone for any weaknesses.
“We are referring to the recent admission of a backlog, dating back to December last year (as reported on Jan 30). In a multi-year pandemic, we understand that errors are inevitable.
“However, the Government must implement a solutions-based approach of corrective and preventive actions to manage the pandemic, not be punitive or shift blame,” it remarked. – Feb 4, 2021.
