Health aid criteria eased
THE Finance Ministry has agreed to make it easier for applicants to receive aid from its Chronic Disease Fund, by raising the eligibility condition of RM600 monthly household income to RM1,500, Utusan Malaysia reported.
The easier condition is expected to be approved next month, it said quoting Deputy Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Suleiman Mohamed.
The decision was made following a discussion between the Finance and Health Ministries after a report revealed that there were no takers for the RM100mil fund, due to the strict criteria of rejecting applicants whose monthly household income exceeded RM600.
Dr Suleiman said RM600 was impractical as the poverty rate was RM1,200 in urban areasand RM300 in rural areas.
To date, he said, his ministry had only received RM1mil from the fund, which had yet to be used, as none of the applicants were eligible for it. He said the ministry would receive RM5mil from the fund next year.
“With the criteria eased, certainly more applicants will be eligible for it.”
Utusan Malaysia quoted a source, as saying that the Health Ministry’s RM1mil allocation this year could not be brought forward to next year because the money was in the form of management expenditure and no time frame was set to use up the annual allocation.
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