Materia Medica Malaysiana

Free treatment at public hospitals to end next year

There isn't going to be any more free treatment at government hospitals! From next year, some eight million Malaysians will have to pay for their medical treatment.
This is when the National Health Financing Scheme comes into force.
Those exempted will be the one million civil servants, some 200,000 disabled people, about 435,000 pensioners, around 250,000 hardcore poor and the unemployed.
Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said public sector healthcare financing had been spiralling upward in the past two decades. Since it first breached the RM1 billion mark in 1983, he said, government healthcare allocations had increased to RM9 billion last year.
He said the demand for health care was projected to increase further.
Last year, there were 1.7 million admissions in government hospitals nationwide. The outpatient departments had 47 million visits.
"The Government subsidised 98 per cent of their treatment. This cannot go on as there has been a significant escalation of health care costs in recent years. Medical inflation in Malaysia is ever increasing," he said after the launch of The Pacific Insurance Berhad's Gold-Cross Medi-Preferred Insurance and Gold-Cross Home Healthcare Insurance here.
At present, Dr Chua added, the general scheme of things under the National Health Financing mechanism had been decided upon and they were in the process of appointing a consultant to look into details, such as the quantum, criteria and ceiling of contributions, the collection mechanism, the basic health packages and the provider payment mechanism (how the ministry will pay the clinics and hospitals).
Dr Chua said the National Health Financing Scheme was a payment scheme and not a privatised or insurance scheme.