The RM41 billion allocated for the Ministry of Health in Budget 2024 is substantially good.
It shows that the government is serious and acknowledges the fact that health care costs have indeed increased, similar to private health care, particularly private hospitals.
We hope this will help the citizens of this country to seek treatment quickly in government hospitals.
We from private hospitals are happy to assist the government in the RM200 million outsourcing budget from public to private, but it has to be expedited immediately as there are patients waiting to be treated as we speak.
The methodology must be seamless so that public patients can be quickly treated in private hospitals only after public health care capacity is exhausted.
The budget must help the patients immediately and not wait for new health care facilities to be built, which will be a long-term solution.
At this point, sharing resources between public and private is the right way.
Our hope is that private health care is allowed to practice without too much of cost containment to allow sustainability, as there will be options for patients to seek care from public hospitals with this increased allocation of budget.
Dr Kuljit Singh is president of the Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia (APHM).
- This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of CodeBlue.
