Health Ministry should take over IJN, says pioneer heart surgeon
PETALING JAYA: The National Heart Institute (IJN) should placed be under the Health and not the Finance Ministry, says Tan Sri Dr Yahya Awang, who helped set up the institution.
As a pioneer who was involved in corporatising the institution in 1992, Dr Yahya expressed concern that IJN is now leaning towards private care.
“If you have a very senior ex-government servant seeing a doctor in IJN, it will take the whole day, but if you have the extra dollars, you can see the doctor in half an hour,” he said.
Dr Yahya raised this during the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute’s (ASLI) ‘Til Eleven Morning Insights with the Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad yesterday.
The discussion was on Innovation and Competitiveness in Health and Patient Care via Public and Private Partnership.
“If you ask me how I would do it differently, I’d say IJN should be a Health Ministry Incorporated product that is based on service, rather than profit,” said Dr Yahya.
He said he knew it was a sensitive issue, but he was passionate and proud of IJN and its achievements and was concerned that its direction was leaning towards private care when it was built with taxpayer funds.
In response, Dr Dzulkefly said he had raised the matter at the Cabinet meeting.
“For the time being, IJN is still under Finance Ministry and not the Health Ministry, but there has been an effort to move it to the Health Ministry,” he said.
Meanwhile, Dr Dzulkefly said the Health Advisory Council (HAC) will be private sector-driven and the set-up along with details will be announced in a month’s time.
In May last year, Dr Dzulkefly said the Health Ministry will be setting up an independent HAC within 100 days to advise the ministry on the direction and strengthening of healthcare delivery services.
The HAC is chaired by former Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman, who is currently chairman of the IMU Group.
Asked if civil society was represented in HAC, Dr Dzulkefly said discussions would be held with stakeholders, and HAC would also engage with NGOs.
He said the ministry and the HAC had started discussions on the mechanism for the ministry to refer patients to underutilised facilities in private hospitals, and he hoped the private sector would offer the services at a reasonable rate.
“The private sector is seen as profit-driven, but it must have a heart and give space to patients whom we cannot treat due to limited capacity,” he said, adding the public sector treated 60% of patients in the country while the private sector, 40%.