SIBU, June 20 — The Ministry of Health (MoH)’s Health White Paper (HWP), which was passed in the Dewan Rakyat last week, should provide Sarawak with the autonomous power in making decisions over matters pertaining to healthcare services in the state, especially in the rural areas.

In pointing this out, Deputy Minister for Public Health, Housing and Local Government Michael Tiang hailed the HWP as ‘exactly going to direct Sarawak towards the path of health autonomy’.

“The Sarawak government had been consulted in the past, while (MoH was) preparing the White Paper. We had a few rounds of dialogues and sessions in coming out with some of the new approaches for the healthcare services in Sarawak.

“As we all know, Sarawak has been fighting for its health autonomy and exactly, this White Paper is going to direct Sarawak towards the path of health autonomy, because this White Paper is mainly (meant) to decentralise a lot of services, (and) decision-making at the relevant regional level.

“So, with the passing of the White Paper, it means that Sarawak is going to gain even more autonomous power in making decisions on how to further improve and enhance our public health services especially in the rural areas,” the Pelawan assemblyman told The Borneo Post when met after the flag-off of the Sibu leg of Sarawak Merdeka Convoy 2023 at the central market here yesterday.

It is understood that the HWP includes a comprehensive policy on reforming the health system in Malaysia, in stages, over the next 15 years.

Adding on, Tiang also talked about a recent report that predicted an oversupply of doctors and medical officers, when at state-level, the number was still not on target.

“If you look at Sarawak level, we have not achieved the proper ratio of medical officers to patients (population) — that means Sarawak is still falling behind our targeted number of medical officers across Sarawak, which is a big state.

“We still need lots of resources to be allocated to every corner of Sarawak to further improve our public health services.

“We can help the dilapidated health clinics — we can upgrade them; we can improve the conditions so that public health services in the rural areas are also being improved — that is good news.

“So, with the passing of the White Paper, we hope that Sarawak would have more power in allocating the resources and manpower all over the state to further improve the healthcare services in every corner of Sarawak,” he said.

Tiang stressed that Sarawak had tried to make changes in the past, but a lot of policies, as well as decisions over resources and allocations had been made in Putrajaya.

“With the White Paper, we hope that it would give power of decision-making over resources and allocations to different regions — northern region, southern region, Sarawak and Sabah; that kind of approach, I think that’s better.

“As far as Sarawak is concerned, this is what we want. I am very happy that the White Paper has been passed in Parliament.”

The report that Tiang spoke about referred to a recent article on health portal CodeBlue, which stated that the Public Service Department (JPA) had dropped scholarships in medicine this year because of the anticipated oversupply of medical officers in fewer than five years.

It quoted Minister in Prime Minister’s Department (Sabah, Sarawak Affairs and Special Functions) Datuk Armizan Mohd Ali as citing MoH’s ‘Supply and Needs-Based Requirement Projections of Malaysia Human Resources for Health Using System Dynamics Approach 2016-2030’ that projected an oversupply of medical officers, from 2026 to 2030.

The MoH study was published in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020.

The article further reported that the 1,354 contract medical officers who quit Malaysia’s public health service in 2022 alone exceeded the 1,279 resignations in the two previous pandemic years combined, based on MoH’s figures shared last February.

Armizan also quoted as saying that the supply of medical officers was recorded at 72,812 people in 2021, exceeding demand for 70,721 medical officers at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic by about three per cent, or 2,091 people. — Borneo Post Online