KUALA LUMPUR: Inefficient use of funds and government resources have left the bottom 40% income group (B40) vulnerable to health issues as healthcare programmes fumble, says the Parliamentary Special Select Committee on Health.
Its chairman Suhaizan Kaiat said this was caused due to long-term issues that have plagued the Health Ministry and its rollout of healthcare programmes.
Speaking about the ongoing Madani Medical Scheme (MMS) and Skim Peduli Kesihatan (Peka B40), he said both schemes face lack of funding and poor management of allocated resources.
“The MMS in particular, suffers frequent breach of ethics, which include inappropriate promotion, selling of drugs without prescription, false claims and illegal sale of drugs,” Suhaizan said during the committee’s briefing in the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.
He said the B40 response to both MMS and Peka B40 had also been lacking due to their apprehension of going through health screenings.
“Many of those in the B40 are still scared of needles, how much more would they be when asked to do a full body medical checkup,” he added.
Suhaizan said the programmes have been ineffective at targeting the B40 who need the most assistance, advising the Health Ministry to use the government’s Central Database Hub (Padu) to better identify and target the group.
Suhaizan also said having the Health Ministry juggling between performing both roles of procurer and supplier of medical supplies was hampering its ability to implement programmes.
“The ministry’s role as procurer and supplier must be separated so it can better focus on one aspect,” he said.
Suhaizan said all these issues combined have resulted in uneven access to MMS and high costs among others.
