Health Ministry ‘does not discriminate against LGBT’

KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry does not discriminate against any religion, ethnicity or community groups in its delivery of healthcare services, says Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

He said that the ministry acknowledged that a doctor had made her opinion known on LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) in her Facebook post.

“Please be informed that the Health Ministry adopts the principle of non-discrimination against any religion, ethnicity or community groups in delivering healthcare services,” he tweeted on Saturday night.

In her post, the doctor, Dr Nur Ilyani Mohamed Nawawi, was said to have written an open letter to social activist Datin Paduka Marina Mahathir on Aug 6 saying that she does not endorse free sex, much less abnormal sexual behaviour.

She asked Marina if she agreed that the LGBT community “dominated the charts for having the highest number of HIV cases”, and questioned Marina what equal rights she was fighting for.

Dr Nur Ilyani said she had received LGBT patients and she had treated them well. She also said that LGBTs were not allowed to donate blood because of their high risk behaviour and whether that was the “equal rights” Marina wanted, she asked.

“Just as you have called for rights, we too want our rights to live in peace and free from an abnormal lifestyle and the diseases that it carries,” she said in the post written in Malay.

Dr Nur Ilyani said she and others like her too had the right to protect their children from falling into accepting abnormal behaviour.

The open letter was reported to have received 4,000 likes and was shared by 2,700 others. But it was deleted after it received complaints from netizens.