PETALING JAYA: The proposed citizenship law amendments are regressive and will worsen the health inequity among already vulnerable individuals, says the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy.
It said the amendments would create new groups of marginalised people.
"In many countries, the stateless are automatically stripped of the capacity to access basic rights, among them the right to health," the centre's chief executive Azrul Mohd Khalib said on Friday (March 15).
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Azrul said in Malaysia, public and private health services are generally accessible to all, even to those of undetermined status.
"However, for anyone who has been stateless or is currently living with that status, real life access (to) care may be different.
"Such individuals and their caregivers would be subject to paying non-citizen fees at public hospitals and more likely to pay for medical treatment themselves.
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"Any sickness or injury, however minor, could be costly and prohibitive to treat. As a result those who are stateless or caring for such individuals may be fearful of... high hospital and treatment bills," he added.
Azrul said the stateless already face obstacles to accessing services that Malaysians take for granted.
"Why would we want to deliberately classify hundreds or even thousands of newborns, infants and adolescents as being stateless, inflicting hardship on foundlings both in the present and in future?
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"The proposed amendments to Section 19B Part lll of the Second Schedule (of the Federal Constitution), requiring any person to register foundlings within one year, is regressive as the child is deprived of citizenship due to parental or third-party neglect, or simply bad luck," he added.
As such, he said the Cabinet and MPs need to base their decisions on the issue on compassion, dignity, common sense and humanitarianism.
