10 minutes
GEORGE TOWN: Private hospitals can provide charitable medical services to the needy if they focus on reducing costs and creating greater volume, said Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng.
This can help private healthcare providers to help patients who cannot afford treatment, he said.
Lim asked Penang executive councillor Dr Afif Bahardin, who is in charge of health, to organise a meeting with private hospitals to initiate a strategy on expanding charitable services.
“With higher revenues, more can be allotted for philanthropic work,“ he said when launching three new services at the Mount Miriam Cancer Hospital here today.
Among those present were the hospital’s board director John Lau, its chief executive officer Joan Lim Choong, hospital clinical director Dr Ho Kean Fatt, and Bishop Diocese of Penang Reverend Datuk Sebastian Francis.
Lim said healthcare is of the government’s priorities with RM100 million set aside for the national healthcare insurance for 800,000 individuals, aged 50 and above, who fall under the lower middle income group (B40) last year.
Another RM50 million was allocated for the treatment of rare diseases including Hepatitis C and the MySalam free national health protection programme, covering 3.8 million Malaysians aged between 18 and 55 in the B40 group, was set up.
According to the World Bank, 38% of healthcare spending in Malaysia came directly from individual Malaysians, a number far higher than Singapore (31%) and Thailand (12%), Lim pointed out.
Mount Miriam is now providing an ambulatory procedure department, MRI and Cyberknife services to cancer patients.
