KUALA LUMPUR: Private hospitals in the country have pledged to assist the government in clearing 50,000 backlogged surgical and medical procedures this year.
Association of Private Hospitals (APHM) president Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh said the remaining patients that cannot be treated early at public hospitals should also be transferred to private hospitals at reasonable reimbursements as was done last year.
“Private hospitals had assisted thousands of government-funded decanted non-Covid-19 patients during the peak of the pandemic last year when healthcare services reached its maximum capacity with the Delta variant.
“The process of transferring patients to private hospitals for non-Covid-19 patients occurred in a very seamless manner in the Greater Klang Valley, Johor and Penang.
“We are happy to continue this effort to help the 50,000 patients on the government waiting to be treated and in-depth discussions on the methodology should be convened quickly.
“This will help to clear the backlog at a faster rate as it will not be realistic for government hospitals to do this on their own,” he said in a statement today.
Dr Kuljit was confident that private hospitals can fulfil this commitment as these facilities have competent consultants, specialists and nurses as in the public hospitals.
“More than 95 per cent of private specialists were formally trained and had worked at public hospitals in the past.
“In some parts of the country, there are more private hospitals than public hospitals although the total number of beds maybe lesser. But, the facilities for investigation and treatment can be made available based on the capacity and capability of the individual private hospital,” he said.
Private hospitals, he added, will also back Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin’s proposal to reform the country’s healthcare and healthcare financing systems, which he described as “long overdue”.
“We are happy to work with the Health Ministry and also to participate in the Health Reform Commission when approved by the Parliament.
“These initial steps of treating government sponsored patients with adequate funding from the government at a private hospital will be part of the building blocks of new health care policy for the future,” he said.
Khairy, on Saturday, said he has proposed a white paper to be tabled in Parliament that aims to make the country’s healthcare system future-proof.
Source: New Straits Times
