The farce that is the Public Healthcare

THE ISMAIL MERICAN MEETING
HEALTH COALITION TAKES ON HEALTH DG
Putrajaya, 14 March 2006

The meeting started with a constrain. Time constrain as Dato Dr. Ismail Merican, the Health Director General gave the star stunned participants from the Health Coalition just one hour to wrap up all the issues. There were around forty people in the room. Thirty from the coalition and ten from the Health Ministry and Department. With the time ticking away, it seems from the start time is going to be factor.
The star stunned Coalition members were themselves led by some Doctors- Medical as well as PHDs and among them were the former MMA President, Datuk Devaraj, Dato Kumarasingam, the former Director of Pharmaceutical Division of the Ministry of Health, Dr. Chan Chee Khoon from Citizen Health initiative, Dr. Xavier, Dr. Mariam, Dr. Nasir Hashim- PSM Chairperson, Dr. Subramaniam – The Gabungan Chairperson and Dr. Jeyakumar, its Secretary. Also high profile were NGOs representative led by the MTUC President himself, Syed Shahir, other organisaton present were the Coalition of the Oppressed People – JERIT, WDC, SUARAM, Nurses Union and many other groups. All the major opposition parties representatives were also present from PSM, PKR, PAS, Keadilan.and PRM.

The Health DG had his own team of experts. The Health DG, Dato Dr. Ismail Merican started with an attack on the media for not writing the actual fact. He started by explaining that there is no privatization plan but just "full paying patient" and that they are undertaking a pilot project to determine the feasibility of their proposal and that a pilot project is a pilot project, and there is nothing to worry about. He said specialist won't be tired, they cannot make their own charges, must follow rules and conditions. He said that his Ministry is the caring Ministry and then strictly opened up to the discussion with a time constrain hanging on everyone's head.

Then the floor was open to the Coalition partners who went one after another starting from Dr. Xavier. Xavier highlighted that health efficiency would be compromised with the new practice, he questioned on why the need to double tax paying patients and why not spend more money into the system. Syed Shahir, MTUC and Joachim from Penang Office of Human Development (POHD) raised the issue of migrant. Syed said that the Internationally it is an embarrassment on how we treat our migrants and Joachim added on how much the country was profiting on the migrants ….but his contributions was stopped short by the DG who said, Next ?
S.Arutchelvan from PSM said that it appears that the Government is washing their hands off its responsibility and is more interested in health tourism. The DG was definitely irritated with this remark.. Koh Swee Yong, PRM and Maria from WDC also raised some personal experience on what patients are suffering from the Government hospital.
Other very straight forward questions were shot – Have you done a study on University Hospital?, Have the Consultation been appointed ? Who are they ? How are you going to segregate patients between paying and not?
Then the Health Ministry officers responded. They said that their first class rates have not been revived since 1982 in which Dr. Subramaniam the coalition Chairperson said, who is stopping you from raising those ?. The coalition were more interested of the well being of the lower and middle income group.

The Ministry officials continued to brief about disciplinary action can be taken against Doctors and when pressed said to date no Government Doctors have been dismissed. They also said that if a private Doctors refer any patience irrespective of the patience's social economy status, they would be immediately told to pay first class rates and if they cannot, then they can apply to the Tabung. The participants were clearly by now quite resigned as everyone seems to know how efficient these tabungs are.
But when more pressing questions were put up, the DG kept saying that these are cabinet decisions especially on the private wing. On the migrant issue, he also ducked the question by saying that it is a policy matter but he would raise the issue up again. On the Health financing scheme, he said, it will take a long time and won't be implemented in the 9th Malaysian plan . He also said very hesitantly that the Health consultants are in the process of being appointed, He also said no study has been done on the current private wing concept in UM and UKM. The DG also kept saying how efficient is our health system which he said is far excellent comparable to any country in the world..
The Coalition chairperson Dr. Subramaniam said that we would need another date but said that the coalition position is not to run down the public health system but to support
it. We want a good and better public health system.

The Coalition members were treated with a lunch. The DG left for another meeting and the coalition members pondered if perhaps, they should be meeting the Minister or the Prime Minister, as it looks decisions are not made here but higher up. It is time to take the struggle to a higher level.
Ismail Merican was efficient. He started and ended on time. The problem is obvious that he does not call the shots. He is put there to defend the position of the State who is quite obvious in turning of public healthy system to yet another money making machine.