MMA president Dr Subramaniam Muniandy said bipartisan support was crucial to ensure the healthcare system would be more efficient and robust post-pandemic.
He told FMT that Covid-19 had revealed the flaws in every healthcare system globally, adding that the lesson for Malaysia was the lack of funds spent on its system.
“No healthcare system was fully prepared for a global pandemic of this unprecedented magnitude. However, the weaker systems will disproportionately bear the most severe consequences.
“What we as a country can learn from this ongoing pandemic is the critical need to rapidly boost our chronically underinvested healthcare system with more investments in infrastructure and human resources and to constantly improve our quality of care.
“A white paper on the way forward for our healthcare system comprising all the stakeholders across the political divide will strengthen our nation’s priorities and ensure consistent policies even if the government of the day changes hands,” he said.
He added that healthcare needed to be prioritised over competing national needs as the pandemic had shown how a health crisis could paralyse every other sector in the nation.
Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy CEO Azrul Mohd Khalib said there needed to be greater commitment to reform and transform the system to “future-proof” it for the next generation.
He pointed out there had been several reviews, studies and white papers on the health system in the past three decades, though they barely reached the point of implementation.
“This is due to the lack of political commitment and public support.
“Tough decisions need to be made and we need to make them, even if they are unpopular but necessary for the longevity and sustainability of the healthcare system, such as introducing social health insurance,” he told FMT.
Azrul also said Putrajaya needed to move away from its “government knows best” approach and be more collaborative by making use of the best talents available in both public and private healthcare sectors.
“It seems absurd that despite Malaysia having world-class expertise in public health on par with developed countries such as the US, these experts, such as Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, are not involved in the national Covid-19 response.”
Adeeba is a World Health Organization (WHO) science council member, the president of the International AIDS Society and former dean of Universiti Malaya’s medical faculty.
Supporting the call for greater spending on healthcare, he pointed out that 45 of 145 public hospitals in the country were over 100 years old, which showed the need for infrastructure to be upgraded in keeping with the times.
He added that health regulations should also reflect a unified healthcare system. Public and private healthcare sectors should not be regarded as being in competition.
“An example: while doctors in government service can also work or function in the private sector, it does not work the other way around.”
He said in its Covid-19 response, the government was severely hampered because it was unable to utilise the talents and strengths of those in the private healthcare sector in public hospitals where this was very much needed. “This is an own goal,” he added.
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