Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin speaking during a virtual press conference on developments during the government's fight against the COVID-19 pandemic at his office today.-BERNAMA pic

KUALA LUMPUR: The Perikatan Nasional (PN) government is seeking to correct years of under-investment in the public healthcare system, which caused the country to suffer today.

Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said the government had allocated more than RM70 billion to the Health Ministry, nearly 5 per cent of Malaysia's gross domestic product (GDP), to manage the Covid-19 pandemic and improve the public healthcare system's capacity.

"This is the highest (amount) ever in Malaysia's history, because of the crisis.

"Indeed, we have suffered from years of under-investment in the public health system and the government is trying to correct it now.

"I'm not trying to put blame on the previous administration, but this is the fact, because we did not give more attention to healthcare and hospital facilities," he said in a special media interview today.

He said Covid-19 was a huge crisis, and nobody had expected this to happen.

"This is a reality that we cannot deny. You may have nice hospitals, but you don't have enough beds, not enough intensive care unit equipment, not enough ventilators or oxygen tanks, because this has never happened before."

Muhyiddin, while acknowledging that cases in Klang Valley were extremely high, also said this was why the Greater Klang Valley Taskforce was created to handle the huge number of infections in the area.

He said Health deputy director-general Datuk Dr Chong Chee Keong regularly updates him on the measures being taken and has ensured that there are enough beds to treat Covid-19 patients in the Klang Valley.

The government, he added, had decided to decant non-Covid-19 patients to private healthcare facilities to decrease the burden on public hospitals.

"We also made a fast and innovative decision to classify government hospitals as Covid hospitals, and mobilise manpower from outside of the Klang Valley where cases had already gone down.

"Through Operation Surge Capacity, the government is ensuring that all in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor who are eligible for the vaccine will receive at least their first dose by Aug 1. We have also approved an additional 3 million doses of vaccines for Selangor.

"With the increased capacity and increased percentage (of those vaccinated), the situation in Klang Valley will improve, insya-Allah."

During the interview, the Prime Minister also took the opportunity to express his gratitude to the healthcare frontliners and apologised to all those who had been affected by the pandemic. - NST