Too early to talk about 1Care, says ministry

Star: PETALING JAYA: Protests by a Facebook group called #taknak1care has prompted the Health Ministry to take on some of the group’s claims against the ministry’s proposed healthcare reforms under the 1Care for 1Malaysia system.
Health deputy director-general (Medical) Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, who joined the discussion on the group’s wall, said the plan was still at a conceptual stage.
“Nothing has been decided and the rakyat will be the first to know,” wrote Dr Noor Hisham in one of his first responses.
He added that speculation and assumptions were not going to help and people must give the new system a chance to be developed.
The Facebook group, citing ministry sources and some public documents, claimed the new healthcare system would be funded by the public through a compulsory contribution of 10% of their monthly income.
It had also claimed that the public would only be allowed to see their designated general practitioner a maximum of six times a year.
Dr Noor Hisham, in response to those claims, reiterated that it was premature to speculate and make an assumption on something the ministry had not studied in detail.
He, however, implied that the scheme might be, in part, funded by employees’ wages as he wrote “your salary goes to the scheme”.
Dr Noor Hisham also said the ministry had only started the first stage of transformation, which is the strengthening of existing healthcare services.
He noted that the Health Ministry would be assisted by the World Health Organisation and experts in healthcare reform when it proceeds to the second stage, which is to study various healthcare models.
According to an earlier article in The Star by Health director-general Datuk Seri Dr Hasan Abdul Rahman, the concept paper on 1Care for 1Malaysia had been presented to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and members of the Economic Council in August 2009.
Consequently, the Health Mi­­nistry had received the mandate to develop the 1Care blueprint.