This, Health Director-General Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, added, had forced the Health Ministry to re-evaluate its financial resources.
Dr Noor Hisham said the demand had put pressure on the ministry’s existing resources.
“To ensure crucial health services are not disrupted, the Health Ministry is evaluating the extent of our financial shortcomings, and optimising and reallocating our limited resources to wherever it is needed the most.
“This is to ensure our laboratories will continue to perform crucial diagnostic investigations,” he said in a Facebook posting.
Dr Noor Hisham backed his claims with data. The ministry noted an 8 per cent increase in the number of patients visiting public health clinics from January to May this year, compared with a similar period in 2015.
Similarly, nearly 45,000 additional hospital admissions were seen from January to June this year compared with the same period last year.
He added that the high cost of health services remained one of the biggest challenges of any healthcare system in the world, especially when the demand for the service continued to increase.
“As we strive to provide excellent health services at reasonable costs with high satisfaction to the rakyat, surely the demand for the health services will also increase,” he added.
Looking forward, Dr Noor Hisham said the ministry intended to translate these challenges into opportunities to be more efficient and effective by “avoiding unnecessary duplication and by cutting wastage to achieve better outcomes”.
In Budget 2016, the Government had allocated RM52 million for 328 1Malaysia clinics and RM4.6 billion for vaccination, consumables and medicines in public hospitals and the opening of 33 brand new 1Malaysia clinics.
Budget 2016 also contained plans to build 5 new hospitals – in Pasir Gudang, Kemaman, Pendang, Maran and Cyberjaya – and for the Kajang General Hospital to be renovated.