Parti Sosialis Malaysia chairman Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj said: “We need to have more government hospitals, and we need to absorb our contract doctors and post them at these hospitals.

“We also need to do community nursing, where nurses are sent to tend to patients (who have suffered a stroke or who are bedridden) at their homes. These nurses can be trained to provide physiotherapy, health screenings, and health education so that these patients would no longer have to visit hospitals in order to get them.”

Jeyakumar, a pulmonologist by training, suggested that the government pull the 7,000 general practitioners (GPs) into the public health system.

“Our country’s management of non-communicable diseases (NCD) is not so good. We need to send the NCD patients to the GPs to undergo treatment. These GPs would not charge these patients since the government will pay for their services, just as in the UK’s National Health Service,” he said.

“The GPs can get medicines from the government. Plus, they can even get bonus payments from the government if the health condition of a majority of their patients improved under their care.

“These are the things that we want the government to do, so the government has to spend more money into the public health system,” said Jeyakumar.