KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 18): The Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia said on Thursday (Aug 18) that the Ministry of Health's proposal to increase the country's public health expenditure to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP), from about 3% currently, should be done under Budget 2023 as the existing public healthcare expenditure is not viable anymore.

The association's president Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh said in a statement it proposes that the increase in the country's public health expenditure should enable private general practitioner clinics and private hospitals to work closer with the public sector to promote good health, and contribute to preventive health measures.

"Investment in digital technology using applications on healthy lifestyle intervention, would further help the citizens to have early access to healthcare screening in private hospitals and funded by the government.
 
"Screening centres in private hospitals are well designed to contribute (to) preventive healthcare, in order to align with the national effort.

"In terms of strengthening the primary healthcare system, be it public or private and optimising resources, private hospitals would like to be considered as part of a link in the healthcare ecosystem.

"We may not be the main provider but we might play a role in referral or co-managing the patient, hence [it is] important for us to be able to have better access/ communication with primary healthcare (providers) and public hospitals for better continuum of care for patients," Kuljit said.

He said a huge burden to the government healthcare sector is currently managed by private hospitals, as the latter manages patients who have financial resources to seek private healthcare services.

According to him, private healthcare providers also contribute to the country’s income through international medical tourism.

"Private hospitals have close to 50 years of experience and would be happy to assist the government in guiding government hospitals in the process of being autonomous and ‘self-sustaining’ as suggested by the Minister of Health.

"Our partnership will not be just confined to treating patients but also in other technical and knowledge sharing of healthcare delivery," Kuljit said.

According to The World Bank's data, which was retrieved on Jan 30, 2022, Malaysia's 2019 health expenditure stood at 3.83% of GDP.

Neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Thailand's 2019 health expenditure was indicated at 4.08% and 3.79% of GDP respectively, while Indonesia's figure was reported at 2.9% of GDP.

On Monday (Aug 15), Bernama reported that Malaysia's Health Ministry is seeking for public health expenditure to be increased to 5% of GDP to ensure Malaysia has a world standard public health system in future.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin had said the benchmark for public health expenditure for an upper middle-income country is between 4% and 5% of GDP.

Nonetheless, Malaysia, he said, is currently only allocating 2.59% of GDP for public health expenditure, thus causing many patients to complain of the long wait to get services such as magnetic resonance imaging or computed tomography scan in government hospitals.