KUALA LUMPUR, April 29 — The Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy has strongly objected to a proposed RM3.06 billion reduction to the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) budget, warning that the move could deepen strain on Malaysia’s already pressured public health system and directly affect patient care.
Galen Centre chief executive officer Azrul Mohd Khalib said the scale of the proposed cut goes beyond a technical fiscal adjustment, arguing that its effects would be felt across frontline services.
“A RM3.06 billion cut to the Health Ministry’s budget is not an accounting adjustment. It is a decision that will be felt in hospital wards, operating theatres, emergency departments, clinics, pharmacies, laboratories, and by patients waiting for treatment,” Azrul said in a statement today.
“The cost of this cut will be paid in delayed procedures, longer waiting lists, medicine shortages, deteriorating facilities, exhausted health care workers, avoidable complications, and preventable deaths.”
Azrul said Malaysia’s public health care system is already operating under “severe pressure”, citing rising patient loads, increasing non-communicable diseases, ageing infrastructure, workforce shortages, and growing demand for complex and long-term care.
He warned that the proposed reduction comes at a time when public facilities are struggling to maintain basic service delivery.
“Our hospitals and clinics are not asking for luxury. They are asking for the minimum resources needed to keep services running safely and effectively,” Azrul said.
He added that more than 70 per cent of Malaysians rely on the public health system, meaning any major funding cut would disproportionately affect lower-income groups, older persons, patients with chronic diseases, children, and populations outside major urban centres.
Azrul also questioned the fiscal trade-offs underlying the proposed cut, pointing out that the savings would be relatively small compared to ongoing fuel subsidy expenditure.
“What does a RM3.06 billion cut gain? It doesn’t even cover the RM4 billion that is being spent each month for RON95 and diesel subsidies,” he said.
He cautioned that reductions in health spending could translate into service disruptions, including longer waits for cancer treatment, strain on dialysis services, delays in replacing critical hospital equipment, and further marginalisation of rare disease care.
Azrul said the proposed reduction would have both immediate and longer-term consequences for the health system, including postponed surgeries and diagnostic procedures, worsening waiting times, loss of trained health care workers, disruptions to maintenance of facilities and equipment, and shortages of essential medicines and medical devices.
He said these pressures would undermine the quality, safety, and effectiveness of care delivery in the public sector.
“Cutting health spending does not make disease disappear. It shifts the burden onto patients, families, employers, hospitals, and future budgets,” he said. “It risks erasing any gains made in improving health care in Malaysia. It increases morbidity and mortality, and it weakens national resilience.”
Azrul urged policymakers to reconsider the proposal, stressing that public health care should be treated as a core national investment rather than a source of fiscal savings.
“The public health care system is one of the country’s most important social protections. The MOH should not be treated as a convenient place to find savings,” he said. “Health protects lives, productivity, economic stability, and social trust. A country cannot build resilience by weakening its public health care system.”
The proposed cut follows reports that the Ministry of Finance has suggested reducing the MOH’s operating budget by RM3.06 billion as part of a broader RM10 billion cost-cutting exercise across ministries, departments, and agencies, amid fiscal pressures linked to the West Asia conflict.
The reduction represents 6.6 per cent of MOH’s RM46.5 billion allocation for 2026, potentially lowering its budget to RM43.4 billion, below last year’s RM45.3 billion.
