He said the scheme encouraged hospitals and specialists to give FPP priority over non-FPP.
For example, he said, FPP were allowed to be bedded in lower-class wards, which were usually filled by public patients.
“How will the system prioritise and decide who to allocate the beds to?” Sivarajan asked in a statement today.
Under the scheme, a specialist doctor can treat and charge Full Paying Patients up to three times the salary he is paid by the hospital.
“Thus, if his salary and allowance a month is RM15,000, the specialist can allocate his time and energy to milk FPP up to RM45,000 a month.
“Now, if two-thirds of your salary come from FPP, wouldn’t you give your commitment and attention to them instead of the non-FPP?”
Deputy Health Minister Hilmi Yahaya recently announced that the FPP scheme would be implemented in eight more government hospitals, after Hospital Selayang and Hospital Putrajaya.
The eight are Hospital Besar Kota Bharu, Hospital Kuala Terengganu, Hospital Kuantan, Hospital Temerloh, Hospital Ipoh, Hospital Besar Kuala Lumpur, Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Klang and Hospital Seremban.
Under the scheme, specialists in participating government hospitals can choose to provide consultation and treatment to patients willing to pay the fees of a private hospital.
Hilmi said the scheme was introduced to prevent the migration of doctors to private hospitals offering better salaries, and would not affect the quality of healthcare for patients in government hospitals.
Sivarajan however disagreed. “Vague safeguards reinforce our argument that the quality of treatment for non-paying patients will deteriorate as all experienced participating and even non-participating specialist doctors will be drawn to the FPP scheme, thus neglecting their rightful duty to treat public patients.
“From an analysis of the scheme guidelines, we can conclude that FPP has prioritised the earnings of specialist doctors.
“Besides ensuring specialists do not migrate to private hospitals, the ministry also seeks to profit from full-paying patients to gather funds for its subsidised services for the majority of the rakyat.”
He said the scheme would enable the government to reduce its health budget and force government hospitals to behave like profit-seeking entities.
“Hospital directors are driven to facilitate and put in more resources for the FPP scheme so as to cover the cost of running their own hospitals.