The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) congratulates Khairy Jamaluddin on becoming the new health minister. I believe we can look forward to fresh, new and innovative ideas from the ministry under his leadership.
He had proved himself a capable leader in past ministries as the youth and sports minister, and more recently, the science, technologya nd innovation minister, and the vaccine minister in charge of the National Covid-19 Immunisation Programme (PICK).
We welcome him to his new role as we look forward to working more closely with the Ministry of Health (MOH).
MOH is probably the most important ministry at this point in time as the country struggles to overcome the pandemic. We hope the setting up of a health commission to steer Malaysia out of the pandemic will be at the top on the minister’s agenda.
There are also many longstanding issues such as permanent positions for contract doctors which we hope will be resolved during his term in office. Perhaps Khairy could be the minister to once and for all resolve this issue, in less than 100 days!
MMA looks forward to meeting with Khairy soon, and having regular engagements with the ministry on health care policies.
We also hope there will be greater recognition of the important role of primary care in our health care ecosystem, as well as the need for increased public-private cooperation and collaboration in the national management of health care.
We would like to take this opportunity to wish Khairy all the very best in this new chapter!
Prof Dr Subramaniam Muniandy is president of the Malaysian Medical Association (MMA).
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