GEORGE TOWN – Systemic issues in Malaysian healthcare have returned to haunt the country, whose Covid-19 pandemic handling is hampered by acute shortages of equipment and human resources.
This is the price that the nation is forced to pay due to poor policymaking in the past and a lack of capital investment in the public healthcare system, said Consumers’ Association of Penang president Mohideen Abdul Kader in a statement.
With Malaysia having recorded more than one million coronavirus cases, he said, testing capacity remains insufficient.
“In OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, they responded fast enough to testing needs because they have a network of public and private labs to serve the public healthcare system, and these are available even in regional or rural cities.”
Early last year, the Malaysian healthcare system faced shortages of personal protective equipment and ventilators, he said.
The horror stories that came out during that period exposed how under-resourced our public hospitals are. It was pathetic that the public, charities, royalty, corporates and others had to run donation drives to supply our hospitals with PPE.
“Since then, we have been hearing about shortages of beds, and medical and nursing staff at our hospitals. We have been hearing how hospital staff had all along been facing workforce issues even before Covid-19.
“The people and politicians are also only starting to realise during this pandemic that Malaysia has underinvested in hospitals, especially in regional and rural areas. Along with that, we also have a shortage of IT infrastructure.
“It is sad that only in the middle of a pandemic did our politicians feel the need to invest in data integration and appointment systems.”
Malaysia has more than a million low-paid migrant workers, undocumented non-citizens and refugees, he said.
But, our politicians are clueless on how to control Covid-19 and vaccinate this segment of the population, till they resorted to extreme measures such as the mass detention of undocumented migrants, which may actually worsen the problem.”
Federation of Malaysian Consumers’ Associations vice-president Datuk K. Koris Attan said for years now, Malaysians have been forced to seek treatment at private hospitals, whose costs increase annually.
In these troubling times, especially, people have been slapped with exorbitant charges for Covid-19 treatment.
Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia president Dr Kuljit Singh was recently quoted as saying medical bills can run up to RM200,000 for 15 days’ hospitalisation.
“The bottom line is, the cost of medical treatment at private hospitals is the same as that at public hospitals. The difference is that the government pays for everything (at the latter), and patients do not know the actual cost.” – The Vibes, July 27, 2021
