Up the health budget, Klang MP urges

AN Opposition MP has called on Putrajaya to allocate an additional RM20.7bil to healthcare spending so that medicine can be more affordable for Malaysians.

Klang MP Charles Santiago ( pic) said the additional allocation for the healthcare budget can be realised by transferring RM12.4bil from the Prime Minister’s Department and RM8.3bil from the Defence Ministry.

This would give a further injection of RM20.7bil to the Health Ministry’s existing budget allocation, consistent with the 7% rec- ommendation by the World Health Organisation, he told reporters at the Parliament lobby.

Santiago stressed that affordable healthcare for Malaysians was crucial, as he quoted Health Minister Datuk Seri S. Subramaniam saying that 39% of private medical healthcare expenditure was out-of-pocket spending.

Therefore, the purpose of the fund transfer is to ensure that the Health Ministry has sufficient money to grant access to affordable medicine for all Malaysians.