Set up public health DG’s post, says ex-minister

KUALA LUMPUR: Former health minister Dzulkefly Ahmad has mooted the creation of a director-general of public health position, on top of the existing health director-general post helmed by Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

Dzulkefly (PH-Kuala Selangor) told the Dewan Rakyat this would enable one director-general to focus on regulatory and hospital-based matters while the other focused on managing public health.

The Amanah leader said there was a difference between hospital-based patient care and population care, which he emphasised needed reforms to be tackled adequately.

“This is very important because we have found that our adaptability and agility to act is very limited, and this order needs to be reworked and reformed to strengthen our public health,” he said.

Dzulkefly said little to no reforms had been implemented in the public healthcare delivery system despite the various studies conducted, pointing out that one of the most recent ones was the Malaysia Health Systems Reform Project by the Harvard School of Public Health, in 2017.

He said the Covid-19 pandemic had exposed the public healthcare system’s weaknesses and how urgently it needed to be strengthened.

“It has been too long. The studies have been done but we’re still using the delivery system that has been outdated and ‘outlived’. It’s spent. We need these (reforms) to face the two challenges of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and infectious diseases.”

Among reforms to the delivery system that could be introduced was the establishment of electronic medical records (EMRs) to serve as the “master patient index” accessed by all hospitals and clinics, he said.

This data would be integrated horizontally and vertically between clinics and hospitals, both public and private.

“These kinds of reforms are important, structural but also require funding to transition from the old ways of our public health system,” he said.

Dzulkefly lamented that Putrajaya’s allocations for healthcare development had dropped by around RM337 million, or about 7% less than the previous budget.

He was “saddened and disappointed” by the decline in funding, saying this area was key towards improving and reforming the public healthcare delivery system.