Materia Medica Malaysiana

Chua: Give out funds quicke

BANTING: Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek wants subsidies and funds to be disbursed faster to kidney patients and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) running haemodialysis centres.

He said it was unacceptable that the subsidies and funds took up to eight months to be approved.

“The patients and the NGOs need the funds urgently because treatment must be administered fast.

“There have been complaints by patients that they needed to wait up to eight months before they received the funding,” he said when opening the Banting Haemodialysis Centre here.

Chua said there was a need to review the entire process of remitting the funds which was presently channelled to the National Kidney Foundation before being dispersed to the approved parties.

“The whole process should be relooked to find out why we need the middleman,” said Chua.

He, however, said he was not questioning the role of NKF in the fund dispensing system.

Chua said presently deserving kidney patients were given a RM50 subsidy for each treatment at an approved NGO centre while the non-profit NGO centres running haemodialysis centres also received grants.

About 2,000 patients are receiving the subsidy from the ministry, which has dispensed close to RM34mil at the end of last year. Eleven NGOs are receiving funds totalling RM2.5mil.

The ministry also has a ringgit-for-ringgit matching scheme given to NGOs to set up haemodialysis centres.

Chua thanked the NGOs for their effort to help make haemodialysis treatments cheaper and more comfortable for patients.

He said the facility provided by the NGOs complemented the 70 treatment centres under the ministry, which is treating 2,500 patients.

“This year, we will be spending about RM30mil to set up such centres in the remaining 45 hospitals that do not have such facilities yet.”

Chua said about 2,400 new patients nationwide were added to the pool of people needing treatment every year, increasing the need for more haemodialysis centres.

Also present were Teluk Datuk assemblyman Datuk Ei Kim Hock; Nanyang Press Foundation trustee Tan Sri Dr Yeoh Tiong Lay and foundation chairman Datuk Wong See Wah as well as St John Ambulance Malaysia president Datuk Dr Law Bin Tick.

The centre is the success story of a tripartite partnership. Nanyang Foundation provided the capital cost for the centre; Ei and the Persatuan Penyayang Kuala Langat will sponsor the monthly rentals for the centre for the next three years and St John Ambulance will manage the centre.