affordable health is important

note: wanted to post this earlier but was caught up by the ‘bloggers united’ post, then just when i thought i could start posting it, the line connection was down. now i’m posting this in the office (after office hours of course!).

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with regards to my posting ‘nationwide leafleting at all government hospitals‘, yes i was there on that day to hand out the leaflet. there were only less than 20 of us around… half of them from our office.

chon kai from suaram penang was the organizer. he brought along 1000 leaflets in bahasa, 200 in mandarin and 100 in tamil. we spread out in the huge hospital ground to distribute the leaflet and decided to meet up again when we had finished distributing all the leaflets. well, within 30 mins or so we did managed to distribute off all the leaflets save for some in mandarin.

at one stage, a malay man in skull-cap (that’s what it is call, right? the ‘haji’ cap, where all PAS members wear) stoped me an asked which company i am from so i told him that i was from a NGO and he asked “you are allowed to distribute the leaflets?. i was dumbfounded for a second but quickly replied "yes sure, we just distribute and didn’t do anything else."  then he mumbled "i have to phone someone.". indeed, he was then on his handphone talking to someone, goodness knows who. maybe he phoned one of the authority to complain that we were distributing leaflets without permission. Maybe he was a BN member! why i said that is. because in the leaflet, right in front, boldly printed on top was ‘BN! do not betray the public!’. haha. he might got pissed off by that.

ok about the leaflet, here are scanned pictures of the leaflet.

page 1, the text are all in bahasa. i will reproduce it here, with my lousy translation of english.

what chua soi lek said:
perbelanjaan kesihatan telah melambung naik dari RM1 bilion dalam tahun 1980 ke RM10 bilion dalam tahun 2006. kerjaaan terpaksa mengenakan cukai baru untuk pembiayaan kesihatan.
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healthcare expenditure had increased from RM1 billion in 1980 to RM10 bilion in 2006. the government had no choice but to impose new tax on the health-care maintenance.
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what the women said:
ta adil ni! you swastakan kepada kroni dengan harga yang tinggi! sekarang you mahu rakyat bayar.
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unfair! you privitised to your cronies at a high cost! and now you want us the public to pay!

the bottom part is about the appointment of the australian consultant who came up with an interim report, which had been circulated to ministries, insurance companies and private hospitals BUT not made public.

2nd page list recommendations of the interim report, which stated among other things, that a patient has to be referred to the hospital by a GP doctor, only then his/her fees will be borne by the ‘tabung pembiayaan kesihatan’; if not, he will have to pay his own’ and get this if a GP doctor recommended too may patients to the hospital, he will be fined. what does this means? well it comes under page 3…

3rd page list the views of the public.
the man you see in the centre says “if the GP doctor was fined when he referred too many patients for specialized care in the hospital, surely he will then stop referring. this put our health at risk!

the last page is where the gabungan membantah penswastaan perkhidmatan kesihatan (GMPPK) make its standing on this issue (top) while the bottom part states what you should do as a responsible citizen who cares for the health-care system in our country.

on the day of the nationwide leafleting, GBMPPK had issued a press statement (which of course did not get to see the print). click here to read it. i urge you to do read please as this is about health-care in our country, an issue that should become everyone’s concern. this is one of the reason i decided to make this post too. why i spent so much time to scan the pictures, why i spent so much time to write this, why, though this was days ago, i still decided to have it up – all because health-care should be our top priority.

as we always said that we need to have our voices heard, whatever the government decided, our views must be sought, thus what the GBMPPK is doing is something very good, so we should give them our support. make your friends aware what the government is trying to do, basically, as seen in GBMPPK’s press release:

– Corporatisation of all Government Hospitals;
– Institution of fees for all medical services;
– Institution of a new Value Added Tax to finance Health Care;
– Setting up a system in which there will be penalties for the primary care doctor or the GP if he or she allows too much access to specialist care;
– Private insurance to cover certain illnesses;
– Further measures that will lead to the increased weakening of the Public Hospitals.

we do not want government hospitals to be corporatised, we do not want to pay insurance for our illnesses, etc – all these will burden our pocket, especially to the poor. as i blog earlier, now in government hospitals consultation is only RM1 and we can get expensive medicines at very low cost but this might not be the case soon if the government change its policy where our health are concern. so let’s all give our support to GBMPPK.

ok to wind up, here is a quotation on health which i would like to share:

look to your health, and if you have it, praise god and value it next to a good conscience, for health is the second blessing that money cannot buy, therefore value it and be thankful for it.

yes, we can’t buy health but then why the saying ‘health is wealth’? i suppose it means wealthy not in the form of cash and material things but… er… in health. the word ‘wealthy’ has different meaning if applies to different situation. anyway, have you heard that some people lose their health to gain wealth, than lose their wealth to gain health?
so true eh!