THE allocation for health services in Budget 2021 can be found across several ministries – the Health Ministry, Higher Education Ministry, Defence Ministry and Rural Development Ministry.
The lion’s share of course goes to the Health Ministry, but there is a slight reduction in its operating expenditure (opex), from RM27.9 billion in 2020 to RM27.2 billion next year.
It is surprising that the allocation for the ministry has been cut while we are in the midst of a pandemic, which, in turn, will see a reduction in several critical programmes under the ministry.
This reduction in allocation is counterproductive at a time when the ministry needs all the funds it can get to ensure that the health of all Malaysians is safeguarded.
The opex for teaching hospitals has seen a slight increase from RM1.33 billion in 2020 to RM1.42 billion in 2021.
As expected, the government has made provisions for immediate requirements for fighting Covid-19, such as procuring vaccines for the population.
The amount directly committed to fighting the virus in 2021 is RM1 billion, slightly less than that allocated for 2020, but there is an additional RM3 billion earmarked for Covid-19 vaccines.
It is not clear how many doses are expected for the allocated amount, but that would depend on the unit price of the selected vaccine or vaccines.
There is an allocation of RM50 million for teaching hospitals (which are under the Higher Education Ministry, not Health Ministry) to cope with Covid-19 patients as they are also part of the pandemic fight, but the amount is not large and will need to be spread out among a number of hospitals.
A total of RM100 million has been allocated, especially for infectious disease research, which is much welcome.
Some of this funding should go towards an epidemiological modelling of the coronavirus pandemic, which would be helpful as it would assist us in fighting the current wave of infections.
The country also needs to carry out behavioural science research to ameliorate pandemic fatigue, and into the long-term health, economic and sociocultural consequences of the virus crisis. It will give us some much-needed data, and help Malaysia improve its pandemic preparedness plan.
It is hoped that some of this allocation for infectious disease research will go towards the accelerated development of fast and reliable Covid-19 diagnostics, which will reduce our dependence on foreign diagnostic antigen test kits and RT-PCR tests. Details are not available at this point in time, so this is likely to become clearer in due time.
The off-take allocation for vaccines will hopefully be used not just for fill and finish, but also vaccine technology transfer, which would form the basis of our own indigenous capability.
This will go beyond Covid-19, of course. It is not entirely clear which ministry or ministries will get this allocation, as most researchers specialising in infectious diseases are in universities.
These allocations will go some way in this war against the pandemic, but probably a bit more would have been helpful. The extra allocation could be used to address prevention efforts that are urgently needed to lessen the impact of Covid-19 on the community.
In parallel, there is some tax relief for other vaccines, too, like the pneumococcal and influenza vaccines.
This will be helpful to make sure that the population has a reduced susceptibility to other respiratory infections. The increased tax exemption from RM6,000 to RM8,000 for other medical expenses, and from RM500 to RM1,000 for medical check-ups, is also welcome, although this is not directly related to Covid-19.
A special allocation for mental health is available, which is nice and will go some way to alleviate mental health issues caused by the pandemic. Some provisions have also been made for mySalam claims.
However, there does not appear to be any special allocation for preventive or promotive health (other than the above), which is really needed in these times as non-communicable diseases contribute to increased morbidity in Covid-19.
It would have been great if there had been a special allocation for preventive and promotive health, as this is badly needed with our increasing prevalence of obesity and its associated disorders.
It remains to be seen whether these allocations for health will be enough to see us through the Covid-19 crisis, as this depends very much on how well we deal with the current wave of infections and whether there will be subsequent waves.
A large part of the Budget is on tackling the economic impact of the pandemic.
Undeniably, this is important as the indirect impact of the pandemic is on socio-economic aspects, and tackling the socio-economic impact is important for health, too. – The Vibes, November 8, 2020
Prof Datuk Dr Awang Bulgiba Awang Mahmud is a fellow at the Academy of Sciences Malaysia
