KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 — Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad said yesterday that regulatory and governance requirements under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998 (Act 586) are delaying the rollout of the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) Rakan KKM initiative.
Dzulkefly explained that the new initiative – which offers affordable paid options for selected health services and elective (non-emergency) procedures at public hospitals – is meant to retain MOH staff, including specialists, through additional remuneration, while generating extra income for the ministry to upgrade public health facilities.
“As everyone is aware, this is a new initiative, and for the first time, the MOH itself must examine and comply with the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998 (Act 586),” Dzulkefly said in a written parliamentary reply to Bayan Baru MP Sim Tze Tzin yesterday.
“This includes stringent and complex legal provisions, particularly those related to the management of government assets and public sector governance practices. This represents a key challenge in implementing the Rakan KKM initiative.”
The health minister added that other challenges include the need to coordinate the licensing process and contractual agreement documents between Rakan KKM Sdn Bhd (RKSB) and the MOH.
On the scope of services, Dzulkefly said Rakan KKM will first be launched at Cyberjaya Hospital, involving orthopaedic and internal medicine services.
“Rakan KKM is optimistic that the implementation and operational direction of this programme will become clearer once all legal, technical, and operational requirements have been finalised,” he said.
Rakan KKM – officially announced by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim during his Budget 2025 speech in October last year – is part of the MOH’s ongoing health system transformation efforts to provide patients with greater choice of care and to retain specialists in the public sector through a hybrid public-private service model.
However, Rakan KKM wasn’t mentioned in Anwar’s Budget 2026 speech earlier this month. Nor was the programme allocated in the 2026 estimated federal expenditure for the MOH.
Health policy experts, including the Federation of Private Medical Practitioners’ Associations, Malaysia (FPMPAM), previously warned that Rakan KKM “cannot leech off public resources for profit”.
They stressed that if the government’s facilities, staff, or equipment are used for paid procedures, the initiative must have clear safeguards to prevent the cross-subsidisation of private income using taxpayer-funded resources.
