The Health Ministry is taking steps to keep private clinics competitive, including raising consultation fees and expanding outsourcing arrangements.
KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Health (MOH) is committed to ensuring the sustainability of private clinic operations through outsourcing arrangements to enable them to remain competitive in the market.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said such intervention measures are critical to building a healthy healthcare ecosystem, while safeguarding the welfare of private medical practitioners.
“I am acutely aware of this issue and dealt with the closure of private general practitioner (GP) clinics firsthand, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We want to ensure that they not only survive but can thrive and continue providing services, as they fill existing gaps in the healthcare system,” he said in reply to a question from Dr Halimah Ali (PN-Kapar) during Ministers’ Question Time in the Dewan Rakyat today.
In her supplementary question, Halimah said that the private primary healthcare sector is currently under pressure due to a decline in the intake of house officers, with 2,034 private medical clinics reportedly having closed since 2013.
To safeguard the sustainability of their operations, Dzulkefly said the government has taken proactive measures by raising the minimum consultation fee for private medical practitioners under existing regulations to RM80, from RM10 previously.
Earlier, in reply to Halimah’s original question, Dzulkefly said the network of private GPs is in fact the backbone of the country’s primary healthcare system, serving as the frontline defence.
“The primary healthcare system, comprising 2,916 MOH health clinics and 10,208 private GP clinics, is the backbone and foundation of our basic healthcare system,” he said.
As such, he said structured collaboration between the public and private sectors is crucial to balancing the healthcare burden borne by government hospitals, particularly in addressing the growing prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
“As we look at the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP), we have included the aspect of NCD disease management in collaboration between private clinics and MOH health clinics,” he said.
In her original question, Halimah asked whether the ministry planned to strengthen the primary healthcare model through closer integration between government clinics and private practitioners in managing NCDs to ease hospital congestion, similar to systems in the United Kingdom and Taiwan.
