Materia Medica Malaysiana

Better health care services: New D-G

Kuala Lumpur: The public can expect better and improved health services in the country over the next few years as major efforts have been taken to enhance them.
Not only that, there would also be more locally-produced medicines with more efforts to commercialise natural products as health supplements.
This is the vision set by the newly-appointed Director-General of Health, Datuk Dr Ismail Merican, who assumed office on March 5. He was, prior to his promotion, the Deputy Director-General of Health (Research and Technical Support).
"I want to concentrate on the healthcare services and enhance the delivery system. I also want to rebrand the Health Ministry's existing services, so that they can contribute to the national economy," he said when contacted Monday.
Dr Ismail, better known as "Dr Sars" among the media circle, said the nation was now facing a growing threat from diseases and increasing health care cost.
In view of this, he said there was a greater need for the healthcare provider in the country to improve the healthcare delivery system.
As such, the department must inculcate a more humanitarian corporate culture, teamwork spirit, a more caring society and professionalism among the existing medical staff, he said.
"For this purpose, we are going to benchmark ourselves to the world standard," he said, adding that public had expected better healthcare services from the Government for some time.
"We want the doctors and other medical staff to listen to what the patients have to say and to be more humane. We want the staff to take this as an opportunity to do better," he said.
The Penang-born Dr Ismail has been dubbed "Dr Sars" because of his frequent appearances in the print and electronic media two years ago to give updates on the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) cases when there was an outbreak of the disease in Malaysia.
The appointment of Dr Ismail, a former Penang Free School student, to succeed Tan Sri Dr Mohamad Taha Arif, who retired on March 4, was announced by Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek on Monday.
Dr Ismail is an expert on hepatology and had served at the district and state levels before being assigned to the Ministry.- Bernama