PUTRAJAYA: The Health Ministry is committed to modernising and transforming the country's healthcare sector during the 15th Parliamentary term to better serve people from all walks of life, says Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (pic).
The Health Minister said this included strengthening healthcare financing, digitalisation and the delivery of services closer to patients' homes, with patient experience and journey serving as key measures.
He said the ministry faced significant challenges as it had to ensure not only that its facilities were adequately prepared, but also that healthcare services could meet the needs of the people.
“Faced with various challenges in healthcare services and the healthcare system, I am certainly among the ministers dealing with a plethora of problems.
“The nature of our ministry is such that it is both facility-based and service-based. Therefore, the challenge for me and my ministry, the secretary-general and director-general, is to ensure that it is improved during the 15th Parliament term.
“I fulfil my ambition of assembling a modern system and delivering healthcare. Whatever the approach, platform or initiative, I will fulfil this as soon as possible,” he said in his speech at the launch of the Postal Medicine Delivery Programme (UMP) on Tuesday (Sept 29).
Commenting further, Dzulkefly said UMP was among the initiatives aimed at improving the patient experience by making healthcare services more accessible, convenient and closer to patients' homes.
He also said free delivery of medicine through UMP is another step towards modernising pharmaceutical services and strengthening the digital transformation of healthcare delivery.
“The closer healthcare services are to patients' homes, the better. Ultimately, we want to ensure continuity of care while reducing congestion at our facilities, particularly hospitals,” he said.
Dzulkefly said the ministry has introduced various initiatives over the years to improve the delivery of pharmaceutical services, including developing the MyUbat application in 2021, which now has nearly 893,000 registered users and has facilitated more than six million medicine supply appointments.
