Free treatment at public hospitals to end next year

Free treatment at public hospitals to end next year
Annie Freeda Cruez

KUALA LUMPUR, Apr 25:
There isn't going to be any more free treatment at government hospitals! From next year, some eight million Malaysians will have to pay for their medical treatment.

This is when the National Health Financing Scheme comes into force.

Those exempted will be the one million civil servants, some 200,000 disabled people, about 435,000 pensioners, around 250,000 hardcore poor and the unemployed.

Health Minister Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said public sector healthcare financing had been spiralling upward in the past two decades. Since it first breached the RM1 billion mark in 1983, he said, government healthcare allocations had increased to RM9 billion last year.

He said the demand for health care was projected to increase further.

Last year, there were 1.7 million admissions in government hospitals nationwide. The outpatient departments had 47 million visits.

"The Government subsidised 98 per cent of their treatment. This cannot go on as there has been a significant escalation of health care costs in recent years. Medical inflation in Malaysia is ever increasing," he said after the launch of The Pacific Insurance Berhad's Gold-Cross Medi-Preferred Insurance and Gold-Cross Home Healthcare Insurance here.

At present, Dr Chua added, the general scheme of things under the National Health Financing mechanism had been decided upon and they were in the process of appointing a consultant to look into details, such as the quantum, criteria and ceiling of contributions, the collection mechanism, the basic health packages and the provider payment mechanism (how the ministry will pay the clinics and hospitals).

Dr Chua said the National Health Financing Scheme was a payment scheme and not a privatised or insurance scheme.

----NST

The study connected with the National Health Financing Scheme has been going on for years and it has yet to see the light of day. The medical fraternity and the public have not been allowed to know what it is all about. We have been just fed with a morsel here and there. Why the secrecy when joe public is the ultimate consumer of the Scheme. Still nothing concrete has been told. It appears that another consultant will be hired to look into its finer details. Probably the unprecedentedly appointed new DG of Health will be around to see it through. Datuk Dr Ismail Merican has been long involved in the formulation of the scheme.
Once again the NST has got things wrong, what's going on, anyway free treatment is not going away just yet. See this BERNAMA report, excerpts ::

On another matter, Dr Chua described as inaccurate a report in an English daily today stating that there would be no more free treatment at government hospitals from next year when the National Health Financing Scheme comes into force.
He said it would take a consultant about a year to study the details of the scheme.
"If the consultant is appointed this year and finishes the task in a year, it does not necessarily mean that after it is completed, the current payment practices are stopped. It's a bit misleading," he said.
Dr Chua gave the assurance that the government would continue to look after the needs of civil servants, the poor, the disabled, pensioners and the unemployed.