Tip scales in favour of national healthcare, say ex-MP, economist

PETALING JAYA: A doctor who is a former MP has called for the nationalisation of health services, saying private involvement only increases costs in the interest of profits.

Dr Michael Jeyakumar, who used to be the MP for Sungai Siput, said he disagreed with Dr Kuljit Singh, president of the Malaysian Association of Private Hospitals, who said at a forum that the private sector should run all hospitals and take care of clinical treatments, with the government only providing regulatory oversight and helping to fund treatments through various schemes.

Jeyakumar said a more sensible approach would be one taking the opposite direction, with the government running all hospitals in order to provide the most equitable care.

“Health services should be nationalised and brought under a single government body. Under the public system, they won’t be run to make profits,” he told reporters.

Acknowledging the popular view that the government is slower to move than the private sector, Jeyakumar said this was only because funding for the health ministry was too low and had led to inconvenient waiting times and crowding at public facilities.

“The health ministry needs support. It needs money for better facilities. Its budget is now around RM32 billion when it should really be closer to RM60 billion because we need better hospitals and more of them.

“I’m all for strengthening the public system because that’s where you get equitable care,” he said.

Economist Geoffrey Williams of the Malaysia University of Science and Technology agreed and said increased government participation could be done in a number of ways.

He said the government could either take on the running of all hospitals in the country or buy services from private healthcare providers at cost price on behalf of patients. Either scenario would result in cheap treatment.

Williams said another alternative was to have a hybrid scheme in which the government would buy medical services and medicines at cost price but allow patients to buy premium “hotel-like accommodation” or “jump-queue schemes” at extra costs.

“This means there would be no profiteering in healthcare, just in personal services.”

He said there would be room for abuse through overcharging or unnecessary tests and medications that as long as private providers were motivated by profit.

He pointed to a case in May last year, in which a private hospital was fined RM200,000 after it was found to be charging more than seven times the ceiling price for three-ply face masks worn by a patient’s nurses.

He said healthcare funded by tax money, like Britain’s National Health System, would remove the incentive to overcharge since neither doctors nor hospitals would stand to benefit.