The country needs to invest more in developing its public health expertise, said Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah at a virtual medical conference earlier today.
"Looking back now, we must invest more in public health.
"I am a surgeon and, in our medical fraternity, many of us go into specialties such as surgery, cardiology, and such. But we (also) need the best brains in public health," he said.
He was answering a question on reforming Malaysia's healthcare system.
Noor Hisham was speaking at the Malaysian Healthcare Conference 2021 organised by KSI Strategic Institute for Asia Pacific, where he delivered a special address and had a dialogue session with participants.
He said the country is now facing a shortage of experts in public health compared to five years ago.
He also said better planning for the country's public health sector could include setting up its own disease research agency, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US.
"This is only the beginning... there will be more pandemics to come," he said, referring to the Covid-19 outbreak which to date has claimed close to 12,000 lives in the country.
For the record, public health is a science that includes hygiene, epidemiology, and disease prevention.
"I think this will be the first thing I will look into for healthcare transformation."
Meanwhile, answering another question from participants, the director-general confirmed that the Health Ministry has halted specialist training for doctors for three months.
This, he said, was done because the ministry has to mobilise all its resources to deal with Covid-19 cases.
They also had to mobilise trainee doctors, also known as housemen, to assist in pandemic-related operations.
"We are now at war. (We are) short of human resources. We are opening up more beds now.
"Hospital Pakar Kanak-kanak UKM, for example, is a brand new hospital without human resources.
"So, we have mobilised the housemen, post-basic nurses. We need to mobilise our specialists as well," he said.
According to Noor Hisham, his ministry foresees that the number of Covid cases would continue to increase in the next two weeks before showing a downward trend. - Mkini
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