YOURSAY | Prioritise life and death issues, health minister

YOURSAY | ‘Leave period poverty issue to women’s ministry.’

Health minister clarifies plan for free sanitary pads

Hmmmmmmmm: I think all ministers should start off by asking themselves the purpose of their ministries. The Health Ministry obviously concerns health. This can be divided into two parts (perhaps more) namely preventive and cure.

On the preventive part, the ministry can promote healthy living, balanced diet, and exercise by coordinating with the Education Ministry as well as the mass media to bring this message to students and the public.

Obviously, even if everybody practices a healthy lifestyle, there will still be lots of sick people. For them, we need medical personnel, clinics, and hospitals.

Find out what is the optimum ratio of doctors, nurses, hospitals, or clinics to the population from studies either done in this country or from other countries. Are we anywhere near this ratio?

If not, how many more doctors, hospitals, and clinics do we need and in which locations? You should be able to get all this information from the department heads in all the states. Then put up a plan in order of priority and funds on where to start first.

It may take 50 years to achieve it, or we may never be able to achieve the target but at least you are able to make use of our limited funds where it is most needed and urgently.

Perhaps, a tour of some of our medical facilities in different parts of the country can give you an idea of the state of our facilities. The above is just a suggestion as I am not a doctor.

Somebody more intimately involved should know much more about the needs of the country. Don’t sweat the small stuff like period poverty. Let somebody much lower down the line tackle this issue.

Harimau_arif: After 60 years of dealing with mostly incompetent ministers who are mainly in the game to ‘fatten their coffers’, I don't think it’s wrong to expect Pakatan Harapan government ministers to be better.

The bar had been set so low by the previous ministers that it shouldn’t even be that difficult to shine. There are so many larger national health issues such as dengue, the plight of contract medical officers, and hospital maintenance/upgrades to name a few.

While sanitary pads are a necessity, I wouldn’t even park the issue under the Health Ministry but more under the Welfare Department.

It’s obvious we have a subpar health minister in place who is lacking the brain power to bring the much-needed reforms.

However, all is not lost. I hope she learned from this sanitary pad fiasco to surround herself with smart people. These smart people can help her carve out the big-picture reform agenda.

Man on the Silver Mountain: I, for one, who is very much a supporter of the new government, find the criticism of the health minister’s sanitary pad issue, valid.

Much has been written but whichever way one looks at it, for the Health Ministry, it is like barking up the wrong tree.

People are forgiving of mistakes, but at least at this stage, people also expect a little higher standard from the ministers and what they can and are supposed to do.

This is the harsh reality, and this reality is such that, they are expected to be smart and to deliver on their jobs, or else, there will be brickbats. Life is at stake, money spent, and people would like it to be simply well-spent.

The public has been tolerating stupid and clueless ministers for a long time already. People stood for election, won it, and by a stroke of good fortune, became ministers, no qualification was needed other than just to win at the ballot box.

Well, people expect more than just a winning candidate. Perhaps, they should know how to work as well!

Determined Sarawakian: Providing free sanitary pads is not the agenda the Health Ministry should be concerned about. Their budget should never address this, what they can do is work with the Women, Family, and Community Development Ministry to address this issue.

This is not insensitive because these are gender and welfare issues. What the Health Ministry should be focusing on are health issues, for example, the number of public health institutions to address the growing elderly population.

In the Klang Valley and major urban centres, there aren’t sufficient medical institutions. The first line of health defence is the Klinik Kesihatan (Health Clinics), which are simply insufficient.

The number of Klinik Kesihatan can also reduce hospital outpatients’ waiting times. There is also the need for government health clinics for expecting mothers and children below 24 months. Separate these from the current Klinik Kesihatan.

Depending on the size of each region, the Health Ministry should conduct studies on commodities, health problems, population, and age to be able to cater to all segments of society.

It will reduce unnecessary attendance at hospitals that will pose challenges to patients who require immediate medical assistance. This will also free up parking spaces at general hospitals.

The Health Ministry’s main mantra must be to prevent viral diseases like dengue and work with the Environment and Technology Ministries to curb dengue quickly, utilising options found in foreign countries.

If vaccination against dengue can curb viral infections, then that will be the beginning. Reliance on hospitalisation to offer medical space to treat dengue patients can be limiting beds for other patients who require specialised medical treatment needs.

The previous health minister was effective because he focused on the reality at hand, and did not dwell on uncharted issues that may be secondary. Remember Harapan is in government, not activism. They need to focus on the masses now.

BOBBYO: You should prioritise your main concerns. Do not think like the ‘black shoes’ former education minister Maszlee Malik, whose priorities were in the wrong place.

Your ministry deals with life and death situations, where the people at many times are deprived of medical facilities that do not exist, or the waiting period is far too long, resulting in the death of the individual.

Heart, cancer, dialysis, or even delivery of babies at times are not provided for in certain areas, resulting in serious complications and at times loss of life.

Get out of your comfortable air-conditioned office and start visiting sites to see for yourself the conditions faced not only by the urban residents but into the rural areas, where at times the facilities do not exist.

Outsource the problems faced by the female gender to the Women, Family, and Community Development Ministry, especially in areas where they can play a part.

Stop enriching those who already have purchasing power. Besides pads, it is time to also take into account other facilities for those who can’t afford to pay.

The above is a selection of comments posted by Malaysiakini subscribers. Only paying subscribers can post comments. In the past year, Malaysiakinians have posted over 100,000 comments. Join the Malaysiakini community and help set the news agenda. Subscribe now.

These comments are compiled to reflect the views of Malaysiakini subscribers on matters of public interest. Malaysiakini does not intend to represent these views as fact.