KUALA LUMPUR: A health commission needs to be set up to reduce bureaucracy, enable access to funds, and address the uneven distribution and remuneration issues of health practitioners effectively, say health experts.
Former health deputy director-general Dr Azman Abu Bakar said the discussion on the creation of a health commission was nothing new and such a commission should be responsible and accountable to Parliament.
“We can move faster because there will be no red tape. My hope is that the health commission is not totally detached from the public services department (JPA) but is given the autonomy to make some decisions as adviser in terms of the government’s directions and policies,” he said as a panel speaker on the second day of the Health Policy Summit 2022: The Future of Our Healthcare – Health White Paper Development.
On his hope for the Health White Paper on the allocation of human resources, he said medical practitioners needed to be bold and brave enough to think out of the box to be heard on human resource issues in the health services.
Universiti Malaya’s Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman echoed Azman’s views on the establishment of the commission and added that in health human resources, training of personnel was important in order to fill the gaps.
“We need to increase the number (of medical practitioners) and the quality, and a system must be put in place as the current state of training is fragmented and can be improved in substantial ways, especially funding,” she said.
On the proposed health commission, Adeeba also said it should have a high-level committee chaired by a minister or even the prime minister, similar to Indonesia which has its president as the chair.
“We definitely need to be out of the JPA as the system doesn’t allocate appropriate pay remuneration. It’s not just doctors but also nurses, who are in an even worse condition. We need to alleviate this situation as health is a service industry which requires the best people because they’re dealing with lives,” she said.
On the prevailing issues other than workforce shortage, she noted there was an uneven distribution in terms of public and private healthcare providers as 70% to 80% of the healthcare burden in Malaysia was borne by public facilities, both in the primary and secondary/tertiary care settings. - FMT
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