“What is the point of building new facilities if the existing ones are not taken care of and deteriorate in quality?
“In my visits throughout the country, I have observed that this trend has persisted over the past 15 years,” he said when opening a Budget 2020 focus group meeting here today.
Lim said to solve this, the government is implementing the 3R approach of “Repairs, Replace and Restore” in taking care of all government medical equipment and facilities.
He said this scheme would involve a high cost and it would be impossible to carry it out within a period of one year but “we need to start now”.
The meeting today is part of a series of 12 focus group discussions being held to obtain views and recommendations for the Budget 2020, which will be tabled on Oct 11.
Lim said the government was concerned with the monopoly over the provision of drugs and its effects on healthcare cost.
“We are currently studying the existing contract between the government and Pharmaniaga to find the best way forward to address the problem. At the moment, the monopoly is costing the government more than RM1.1 billion yearly.
“I believe the public health system will be able to spend more efficiently, and help address the problem of rising living costs, if we are able to introduce healthy competition within the drugs supply market.”
The finance minister called on the health ministry to carry out administrative reforms so that savings could be made and health services delivered more efficiently.
“The finance ministry has a new policy of returning all savings made by any ministry, through such administrative reforms, to the same ministry.
“This is to encourage all ministries to redouble their reform efforts through creative and innovative approaches.”
Lim said there were 2.6 million admissions to government hospitals last year, compared to 1.1 million admissions to private hospitals.
“This number reflects the dependency of Malaysians on our public healthcare services.”
He said according to the World Bank, 38% of healthcare spending in Malaysia comes directly from individual Malaysians.
“This is higher than some of our neighbouring countries. For instance, out-of-pocket healthcare spending in Singapore and Thailand is 31% and 12% respectively.”
This was one of the reasons for the government introducing the mySalam programme this year to help reduce out-of-pocket healthcare spending among Malaysians.
This is a free national health protection programme, covering 3.8 million Malaysians, aged between 18 and 55, in the B40 low-income group.
It provides a RM8,000 one-off lump sum payment for those diagnosed with any one of 36 critical illness.
Furthermore, the scheme also provides income replacement payment of RM50 daily to those receiving treatment at any government hospital for a maximum of 14 days, or RM700 annually.
Lim said the government had also provided RM100 million, through the nationwide health screening programme, Skim Perlindungan Kesihatan (Peka), for 800,000 individuals, aged 50 and above, in B40 households.
Another RM50 million was allocated this year for the treatment of rare diseases, treating Hepatitis C, providing more haemodialysis screening and treatment, and expanding the Enhanced Primary Healthcare programme.