Advice for PH politicians on health

 Thank you for giving me the opportunity and a few minutes to speak on behalf of the CSO Health Cluster. Hi, I’m Chee Han, co-founder of Agora Society and the co-lead for the health cluster. By now everybody should know that public health is the top issue for the general public, and likely to stay so as long as the pandemic is not completely resolved. We expect, it should last at least towards the middle of next year.

So, the biggest of the opposition bloc coalition, Pakatan Harapan, should now present to the rakyat your comprehensive policy and positions on how to deal with the pandemic. Surely, the current crisis has dented public confidence in the PN govt, if PH does not step up by providing a clear, competent and constructive alternative, in a policy white paper or in the coming manifesto, people on the ground may not be convinced about the actual margin of difference between PN and PH. It is always easier to criticize when the government is not doing a good job than when you are in the hot seat of governance yourself.

We can all see signs of stress and cracks in our public healthcare sector, the frontliners’ physical and mental state are especially taking a toll due to sheer increase of daily new cases on the uptrend. It is high time for PH leaders to rally the public at large and the private sector, to help the nation to get over this tough period – politicking or merely criticizing the political opponent on social media and webinars won’t get anything done to relieve the burden of frontliners and the stress on the health facilities. Many local district health offices need volunteers from the community to help with contact tracing and follow up with the close contacts and confirmed patients who are put under home quarantine. At tertiary level, MOH might need more medical personnel to help relieve their work burden and allow them to have longer and more reasonable breaks and rest period. We are sure PH leaders with the network to the private health sector players, could organize some serious reinforcement of medical volunteers to stop the dangerous gap right now. On the economic side, PH should also come up with better and more targeted financial aid packages to the households most affected by the pandemic. If you could do shadow budgets, why not the same for COVID-19 socio-economic packages where people are now eager to know what PH could offer?

With growing experience of the pandemic and public health challenges, the PH commitment and promise to increase serious investment in MOH to the tune of 4% of GDP in the 2018 general election manifesto was forward-looking. Now the importance of the public health sector cannot be overstated, so PH should keep pursuing this since the current budget does not live up the expectation of investing significantly in health. The PH government failed to keep the “4% GDP” promise, so this target has to be reaffirmed to gain public confidence that PH sincerely cares about people’s health and will turn promise to real action. We commend former PH health minister Dr Dzulkefly for emphasising the strengthening of primary healthcare, that is definitely the direction to go and needs serious investment of capital and human resource.

So, in conclusion, 3 items for PH to put in place: (i) comprehensive policies and competent strategies in handling the pandemic on the public health and economic fronts, (ii) rallying grassroot communities and private sector support to help the MOH overcome the current wave of the pandemic, (iii) reiterate PH’s promise to prioritise health and serious investment of at least 4% GDP in the public health sector.