THE real test for Malaysia’s Prime Minister material Khairy Jamaluddin in his current capacity as Health Minister is not about managing COVID-19 alone but how he deals with the myriad of issues called public health.
This is because everything that has the word “public” in Malaysia is not in good shape, according to former de factor Law Minister Datuk Mohd Zaid Ibrahim.
“You look at education. Public colleges and universities suffer from a lack of finance, good lecturers and other facilities. Why? Because big money comes from privatising education, private colleges and universities sprouted all over the place in the last 15 years,” lamented Zaid in his recent Facebook posting.
“Many of these colleges were owned by politicians and ex-civil servants. That’s why PTPTN (National Higher Education Fund) are now. RM7 bil poorer.”
Back to public health, Zaid said Khairy has to address the many years of neglect for a start.
“The country was enamoured by this policy of selling health facilities to the rich, with the euphemism called health tourism,” he chided. “That’s okay if we have set aside enough money for our hospital beds, emergency facilities and enough money to retain and keep the best doctors.”
The COVID-19 experience, observed Zaid, has shown Malaysians the true situation with government-linked companies (GLCs) owning all the best private hospitals, making huge profits to show their political bosses they make good money to justify their bonuses.
“That’s why in some private hospitals, the price of Panadol differs from the lower floors to the luxurious top floors,” revealed Zaid.
“Private hospitals bills in this country are insanely expensive. It is profiteering on a mega scale. Yet they suck out the best doctors from the government hospitals and not much was done to stop the exodus.”
Zaid said doctors and medical consultants should not be blamed for this phenomenon as they usually take no more than 10% of patients’ bills.
“Their fees are regulated. Their fees have not improved by much in the last five years but the private hospital owners were given carte blanche to increase their charges,” he pointed out.
“These charges have skyrocketed 500% in the last five years. Does KJ know this? Is he going to regulate the fees charged by these medical conglomerates?
“Let’s give him six months to do something about this excessive profiteering by the private hospitals. Their fees must be regulated just like the doctors.”
Equally pressing is for Khairy to develop a plan to get the best doctors coming out from the universities to serve the public, according to Zaid.
“This plan to get the best is urgent. We must be able to produce good doctors who are then adequately rewarded for serving the public. No compromise on this issue if KJ cares about public health,” he added. – Oct 7, 2021
