KUALA LUMPUR, August 5 — The Malaysian Public Health Physicians’ Association (PPPKAM) has highlighted various gaps in the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP), including the lack of outcome indicators.
The public health doctors’ group said the government’s five-year plan, which was tabled by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim in Parliament last Thursday, lacked a clear equity-based health approach.
“There is no specific strategy to close health gaps among vulnerable groups such as the B40, Orang Asli, migrants, and rural communities,” PPPKAM president Prof Dr Mohamed Rusli Abdullah said in a statement Saturday.
He added that the 13MP also failed to explicitly emphasise the social determinants of health (SDH) by not holistically looking at education, housing, employment, public transport, and food security as key health determinants.
13MP had insufficient emphasis on the involvement of the community and civil society, which PPPKAM said was necessary to raise health awareness and literacy.
Mental health wasn’t mentioned in 13MP, even though it’s a rising global health crisis with increasing cases of depression, anxiety, and suicide in Malaysia.
“There’s a lack of detail on health workforce development and distribution,” said PPPKAM.
“A strategic plan is needed to improve distribution, capacity, and welfare of the health workforce, especially in elderly care, public health, and remote areas.”
Finally, the public health physicians’ group criticised the lack of outcome indicators or progress monitoring systems in the 13MP, unlike practices in developed nations.
PPPKAM suggested the formation of a “Health in all Policies” unit under the Economy Ministry or the Prime Minister’s Department to mainstream health across ministries.
“Optimise existing human resources through strategies such as task-shifting, reskilling, and strengthening multidisciplinary health teams. Focus on building capacity and competency among community health volunteers,” PPPKAM added.
The group also urged the government to publish periodic National Health Report Cards with key performance indicators and equity gaps.
PPPKAM suggested mainstreaming an equity-based approach by using disaggregated data to track health access by location, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status, as well as to focus on marginalised and high-risk groups.
Mental health should be integrated into primary care systems and implement mental health programmes in schools and workplaces.
“Involve volunteers, community leaders, and NGOs in policy implementation. Conduct large-scale health literacy programmes,” PPPKAM added.
On positive proposals in the 13MP, the public health physicians’ group supported the focus on primary care and prevention of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), health care digitalisation, medicine security, as well as health across the life cycle and planetary health.
