KUALA LUMPUR: The Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy has urged the Madani Government to implement bold reforms and increase investments in three critical areas.
The areas are financing health and aged care, removing sugar subsidies, and raising on-call allowances for doctors and dentists.
Galen Centre chief executive officer Azrul Mohd Khalib warned that relying solely on annual increases in federal health allocations is inadequate and unsustainable.
“At the current growth rate, it would take at least 10 years to reach the desired five per cent of today’s GDP levels,” he said in a statement today, stressing that policymakers must realistically address how to fund healthcare in the long term.
He called for a compulsory National Health and Social Insurance with contributions similar to SOCSO, 1.75 per cent from employers and 0.5 per cent from employees, which could raise at least RM6 billion annually to support treatment, expand human resources, and provide aged care for Malaysia’s growing elderly population, now over 11 per cent of citizens.
He also proposed removing outpatient and specialist fees at Ministry of Health facilities, arguing that current charges misrepresent the true cost of government healthcare and place unnecessary burdens on patients.
The centre also urged the government to eliminate sugar subsidies costing taxpayers around RM500 million yearly, with Azrul highlighting that cheap sugar drives rising diabetes and other non-communicable diseases, undermining initiatives like the Ministry of Health’s “War on Sugar”, and calling for floating sugar prices and redirecting subsidies to other health priorities as a more effective strategy.
Azrul further called for a boost in on-call allowances for medical and dental officers including specialists, noting that current rates of RM220 to RM250 for weekend 24-hour shifts equal just RM9.16 per hour, less than what restaurant staff or coffee baristas earn, and that an additional RM80 million annually could raise allowances by RM55 to RM65 per shift, addressing growing dissatisfaction and preventing the exodus of skilled healthcare workers from public service.
“The government must make bold, concrete moves to future-proof Malaysia’s healthcare system. Our doctors, nurses, and dentists deserve better, and the public deserves a sustainable, well-funded system,” Azrul said.
