The health ministry urgently needs a cultural reset, not just a strategic one.
From Dr Musa Nordin and Dr Azizi Haji Omar
The tragic and untimely death of a doctor at Kuala Krai Hospital has sent shockwaves through the nation’s healthcare fraternity. As we mourn this profound loss, our sorrow must fuel deep and honest introspection for the health ministry (MoH).
This tragedy has, once again, exposed chronic, systemic failures that high-level strategy can fix if we ignore the human element at our core.
We are currently inundated with announcements of new MoH tactics and strategies. Using an “all-of-government” and “all-of-society” approach, the ministry has rightly collaborated with the public and private sectors to address the complex challenges of post-modern healthcare.
These external reformations of the private healthcare space are necessary. However, they risk becoming a distraction, overwhelming the festering internal issues that plague our own public healthcare system.
While we strategise on insurance premiums and medical inflation, our own house is on fire. The symptoms are undeniable: a high attrition rate of healthcare workers, severe understaffing (or is it a distribution failure due to the glaring absence of a National Health
Human Resources Dashboard?), critically low morale, severe overcrowding, and a public healthcare service buckling under immense capacity strain.
The death in Kuala Krai is a grim testament to this reality. It is not an isolated incident but a symptom of a system where the wellbeing of its healers has been deprioritised.
We can talk endlessly about data, financing, and digital transformation, but these efforts are built on a crumbling foundation. A well-designed strategy will inevitably fail if it is not aligned with the cultural values of the organisation that must execute it.
This brings us to the wisdom of the management concept often attributed to Peter Drucker: “Culture eats Strategy for breakfast.”
MoH urgently needs a cultural reset, not just a strategic one. This means moving beyond task forces and press releases to embrace a Just Culture in every hospital, clinic, and department. A Just Culture is not about being soft; it is about being fair and systematic. It is a culture where:
1. Psychological safety is paramount. Healthcare workers must feel safe to report errors, near misses, and – critically – bullying and harassment, without fear of retribution.
2. We investigate systemic issues, not assign individual blame. When a system is understaffed and overcrowded, it is a systemic failure, not a personal one, when a worker buckles under pressure.
3. Wellbeing is a strategic objective. Addressing the severe understaffing and low morale is not a “human resources problem”; it is the most critical strategic imperative facing MoH today.
The Reset Strategy and other initiatives to reform the private sector are commendable, but they cannot be the entirety of the ministry’s vision.
They address the economics of healthcare but ignore the ecosystem that sustains it. The internal MoH issues are not “soft” problems; they are hard, structural threats to the very survival of our public health system.
It is the role of our leaders, both political and civil, to ensure that their work and ethical culture support their strategic objectives. The strategy for a modern, cost-effective healthcare system is meaningless if we do not have the healthy, supported, and motivated workforce to
deliver it. - FMT
Dr Musa Nordin and Dr Azizi Haji Omar are pediatricians at the Damansara Specialist Hospital and FMT readers.
The views expressed are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
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