Its president, Dr Muruga Raj Rajathurai, said the sector has for many years been managing with a miniscule amount but delivering high quality of care.

“But our facilities are aging and there are shortages in manpower that are stretching the system.

“Aging public healthcare facilities will need funds for maintenance and upgrades,” he said in a statement this evening, adding that a proper assessment be done to determine which facilities need to be given priority.

Muruga Raj said new facilities were also needed especially in rural communities, including in Sabah and Sarawak, to ensure equal distribution of healthcare services nationwide.

He also hoped that funds would be allocated for the setting up of specialised centres in the north and south of Peninsular Malaysia as there were patients who had to travel to the capital and Selangor for certain specialist care services.

He said the government should pay attention to medicine security, given the current prolonged disruption of medical supply.

“The health ministry could also look into investing in our own research and development to enable us to reduce dependency on foreign pharmaceuticals,” he said.

Muruga Raj said more allocations were needed to combat communicable diseases (CD) and non-communicable diseases (NCD).

He said MMA was concerned over the rising cases of NCD.

“To encourage Malaysians to adopt a healthy lifestyle, the government should increase the tax incentives for those regularly engaging in sports and fitness activities as well as for purchases of sports equipment,” he said.