KUCHING: Greater healthcare autonomy in healthcare decision-making for Sarawak can be beneficial to both public and private sectors.
Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Dr Sim Kui Hian pointed to the state’s swift and decisive deployment of hotel quarantine facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic as a compelling demonstration of what healthcare autonomy and public-private partnership could deliver.
He added that Sarawak remains firmly on course in its pursuit of greater control over its own health agenda.
“During the pandemic, individuals under quarantine would stay at community halls until we collaborated with hotels.
“If we didn’t do so, these hotels would cease to operate these days,” he said to reporters after officiating at the Borneo Medical Centre’s (BMC) Second Satellite Laboratory at Pines Square Batu Kawa here on Sunday.
Commending BMC as a proudly home-grown institution that has grown from a single hospital to a network of six medical centres since its Kuching branch first opened in 2013, Dr. Sim reaffirmed that private institutions such as BMC are an indispensable part of Sarawak’s overarching healthcare policy and urged both sectors to enhance their collaboration.
Turning to the chronic shortage of doctors, he highlighted the pivotal role of the Sarawak Medical Committee in credentialling specialists under the state’s own framework.
“If the specialists are unable to work in Malaysia, the Sarawak Medical Committee can allow them to work in Sarawak through their own criteria and proper assessment,” he said.
Dr Sim added that the state government plans to extend the committee’s purview to medical officers and housemen to close federal recognition gaps.
He concluded with a pointed reminder on the realities of healthcare financing, noting that while constructing a hospital such as Sarawak’s Heart Centre may cost RM400 million, its annual operating expenditure stands at RM200 million, stressing that “the cost of running a hospital is more expensive than building a hospital,” and that only through disciplined, forward-looking planning can Sarawak sustain the healthcare system its people deserve.
