Improving standard of hospitals the priority

Star: TAIPING: The Health Ministry will concentrate on improving the standard of hospitals under the Ninth Malaysia Plan (9MP), said its minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek.
Fewer new hospitals would be built, he said, while more efforts would be placed on upgrading the facilities and infrastructure of the country’s existing 135 hospitals.
“The ministry will only build new hospitals in areas which need them,” he told reporters yesterday after opening an RM8.7mil laundry plant by Faber Medi-Serve Sdn Bhd in Kamunting near here.
The plant, the largest laundry facility in Perak, is expected to provide more than 80% of the laundry needs of government hospitals in the state by next year.
Dr Chua said healthcare support services provided by private concessionaires remained satisfactory, although there was a need to improve the management of clinical wastes and facilities engineering maintenance.
Since 1997, the ministry had privatised five services to three concessionaires, including Faber Medi-Serve, for a period of 15 years, said Dr Chua.
The services, initially costing the Government RM500mil annually, were for clinical waste disposal, facilities engineering maintenance, cleansing and janitorial services, linen and laundry services, and biomedical engineering management.
“The cost of these services has been increasing and has reached almost RM600mil yearly,” he said.
He added that local healthcare support service providers had been encouraged to venture into the overseas market, based on the advice of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
“As the number of hospitals and hospital beds in Malaysia will not increase much in the next five to 10 years, we encourage them to expand overseas,” Dr Chua said, adding that certain countries had sought the ministry’s expertise and experience in the healthcare support services area.
Under the 9MP, efforts would also be made to expand and improve biomedical genetics testing at the Institute for Medical Research.
The institute, he said, was the sole institution in the country with facilities and expertise to conduct tests such as on inborn errors of metabolism, which could cause brain damage and mental retardation if left untreated.