Mawar Medical Centre ordered to cease all operations, except haemodialysis

SEREMBAN: The Health Ministry has ordered the Mawar Medical Centre (MMC) here to cease operations, following the resignations of all but one of its medical specialists.

The doctors who resigned on Nov 1 said they had not been paid their dues, believed to run into several million ringgit.

Despite the order to cease operations, Ministry deputy director general Datuk Dr Azman Abu Bakar said the MMC's haemodialysis wing, or Mawar Haemodialysis Centre (MHC), which ranks among the country's largest non-profit private dialysis centres, could continue to operate as usual.

He said based on rule 16 of the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Regulations 2006, every medical service provided by a private healthcare facility must have a head and medical specialist to be able to function.

"Since the specialists have resigned, the hospital must stop all in-patient and outpatient, ambulatory, support, as well as outpatient specialist services.

"The management must also submit an application to make amendments to its licence and to downgrade from a private hospital to a private haemodialysis centre immediately," he said in a Nov 5 dated letter to the management.

It is learnt that two doctors who sit on the MMC's Medical Advisory Council have not resigned as the law prohibits them from doing so.

Dr Azman said since the ministry had also received information that the facility might be taken over by a third party, the management was duty-bound under the law to give a notice to the Health director general within 30 days.

The 78-bed MMC was opened in 2007 to, among other things, help subsidise the cost to run the MHC, which opened a decade earlier.

Apart from the main dialysis centre, MHC has branches in Lukut, Bahau, Rantau, Kuala Pilah, Mantin (Negri Sembilan), Sepang, Seri Kembangan (Selangor), Gemas Baru, Yong Peng (Johor), Seputeh (Kuala Lumpur), Pending, Serian (Sarawak) and Tawau (Sabah).

It is learnt that about half the patients do not pay for treatment, whereas those receiving similar treatment at private medical centres need to pay between RM300 and RM400 per session and undergo three sessions a week.

The state government had initially agreed in principle to take over the MMC following negotiations on Oct 1 and Oct 15, but has dropped the idea due to "new and unfavourable" conditions set by the management.

A source said the terms and conditions stipulated by the management were not consistent with discussions held with a team led by Mentri Besar Aminuddin Harun.

"There were some additional conditions mentioned in the memorandum but which were not spelled out during the (first) two meetings.

"As such, the state government, which was supposed to take over both centres via Mentri Besar Incorporated, has decided against going ahead with the move," he said.

Since then, the hospital management has since entered into talks with another company to take over the operations of the MMC.

The MMC management has yet to respond to queries on the ministry's directive, ordering it to cease operations.