INVESTIGATING HEALTH CARE
Journalist Boo Su-Lyn's past Malay Mail Online articles touching on the economic and sociopolitical state of the country may have been deemed either controversial or commendable, but they were always unbridled and wellthought-out pieces encouraging the readers’ critical thinking.
Now as t he Editor-in-Chief of CodeBlue, a health news por tal, repor ting on impor tant issues and policies related to healthcare in Malaysia and around the world is her t op priorit y. CodeBlue was set up in 2019 to specifically cover healthcare issues as Su-Lyn noticed that there was a lack of repor tage on t he dif ferent healthcare issues i n the countr y.
“While the mainstream media does repor t on healthcare issues, it wasn't as in-depth as I would have liked it,” says Su-Lyn. “That's why I decided to star t my own plat form with Azrul Mohd Khalib of the Galen Centre, an independent public policy research and advocacy organisation on health and social polic y.”
Since then, CodeBlue has grown beyond SuLyn’s wildest dream. The website recorded 10 million views l ate l ast year and that number is only growing. Making health political, CodeBlue’s main objec tive i s to get Malaysians aware of the dif ferent health issues i n order to advocate f or qualit y healthcare.
A lot of the issues covered by the website had made the Ministr y of Health take notice, who i n turn had taken bet ter ac tion and policies. It was also CodeBlue that broke the stor y about what was going on with MySejahtera. Using information from the Public Accounts Commit tee's repor t that was released i n Parliament, they wrote the stor y on how MySejahtera was developed without a contrac t between the government and the app developer.
“Healthcare is not free, it is paid for by taxpayers’ money, so all of us have t he right to demand for how our taxpayers’ money is bet ter spent,” says Su-Lyn. “Because of our l aser focus on healthcare, we l ook for t hese things where most media or politicians wouldn't really bother about.”
“Healthcare is not free, it is paid for by ta xpayers’ money, so all of us have the right to demand for how our taxpayers’ money is better spent.”