Private medical group seeks better healthcare for rakyat

Malaysian Reserve The Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia (APHM) is requesting more engagement between the medical community in the private sector and the government to ensure a better healthcare system for Malaysians.

APHM president Datuk Dr Jacob Thomas said the engagement would ensure that the private sector continues to deliver quality healthcare especially when the proposed 1Care for 1Malaysia scheme takes effect.

“The Health Ministry has given the assurance that when the new system takes place, both the public and the private sectors will be seen as partners and key players. This is as much as we know now but we were assured that this whole process is still in the area of research and study,” he told The Malaysian Reserve in a recent interview.

In reports earlier this year, Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the government has yet to decide on the new system as it was still evaluating the various models including studying the feasibility of the 1Care scheme.

He said the government was currently looking at and studying various models, including the health insurance model, Employee Provident Fund type model, social health insurance model, taxation model and other hybrid models, involving government-employer-employee participation.

Healthcare is now a big business witnessed by the listing yesterday of IHH Healthcare Bhd, one of the largest listed private healthcare providers in the world with an expected market capitalisation of close to RM23 billion. It also ranks among the largest companies on the Main Market of Bursa Malaysia.

Dr Thomas said the government plans to make the 1Care scheme mandatory for the public but details of the plan, which is deemed controversial by some, are still sketchy. The scheme is aimed at providing quality healthcare for all citizens regardless of financial ability.

“We know, and the government also realises, that private healthcare is not subsidised by the government. It is not affordable to the ones that do not have the means to pay for it,” he said.

In APHM's meeting with the Health Ministry officials on the 1Care scheme, he said they were told that the government was in the midst of talking to the stakeholders to see how they can bring about the new scheme which will be fairer and more equitable to the rakyat.

“The new scheme shouldn’t go backward. It should also cover everybody. That means, one who is old, a pensioner or a retiree, should have access to healthcare. That is the aim of the 1Care scheme but what the association and the medical community has been saying is whatever you make it to be, it has to be better than the current system,” he said.

Dr Thomas, who is also the group medical advisor of Sime Darby Group and Subang Jaya Medical Centre (SJMC), said the medical tourism industry would remain rosy this year due to the positive response from regional countries.

Malaysia has recorded a 48% increase in medical tourists last year to 583,000 patients from 393,000 patients in 2010, collecting a revenue of RM511 million in 2011, said Dr Thomas.

“The number of foreign patients will definitely increase because the efforts by the government and the medical fraternity to promote Malaysia in the last five to 10 years is finally bearing fruit,” he said.

The domestic healthcare sector is expected to reach RM548 million in revenue in 2012, with over 600,000 foreign patients arrival this year, according to health-related consultancy website Malaysia Healthcare chief operating officer Vijayan Samuel.

Dr Thomas said Malaysia is on the right track to boost healthcare services with the government placing much emphasis on medical tourism and healthcare travel through the Economic Transformation Programme.