PETALING JAYA: Universities will be roped in to “adopt” nearby dengue hotspots to fight the menace.
The national dengue task force, made up of multiple ministries and agencies, has decided this and will collaborate with the Education Ministry. The move will involve 27 public and private higher education institutions.
“The universities will be guided by state health offices. This is to create awareness and bring about change in health-seeking behaviours,” Health director-general Datuk Seri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said yesterday.
The task force’s latest move was posted on his Facebook page after its meeting yesterday.
The universities would also organise “Dengue Free Campus” programmes involving staff and students, he said.
Dr Noor Hisham said private hospitals were also asked to ensure that their physicians updated themselves with the latest guidelines on clinical management of dengue as 20% of dengue deaths nationwide occurred in their facilities.
“We will work together with the Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia in making this happen,” he said.
According to ministry data, another four dengue patients died during the week June 21 to 27, putting the country’s total dengue deaths this year at 162.
From January to June 27, the ministry reported 56,533 dengue cases with 162 deaths compared with 42,229 cases and 82 deaths during the same period last year.
The ministry expected the increasing trend in dengue cases to continue until the end of the year.
Healthcare industry urged to improve services
PETALING JAYA: Malaysian healthcare industry members have been challenged to improve services.
In giving the thumbs up to medical tourism, Malaysian Medical Association president Dr Ashok Philip said the healthcare sector should keep improving its services to meet patients’ needs.
He said more private medical centres were being accredited by the Malaysian Society for Quality in Healthcare and the Joint Commission International.
“Because of that, foreign patients have a fair amount of confidence,” he said in a telephone interview.
He was responding to Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s announcement on Tuesday that medical tourism would be made a priority for Malaysia.
Malaysia had 770,000 medical tourists last year, bringing in around RM700mil in revenue.
The number is expected to rise to 930,000, with an estimated revenue of RM1bil, he said.
Dr Ashok said the country was attracting medical tourists in a big way and had many repeat customers, especially from Indonesia.
Asked if medical tourism might worsen the brain drain in public healthcare, Dr Ashok agreed that private hospitals generally roped in more specialists from the public sector.
And for this reason, the Health Ministry encouraged more doctors to go for alternative ways of getting their Master’s degrees.
However, Fomca secretary-general Datuk Paul Selvaraj is worried that with increasing demands from medical tourism, the private sector would keep taking specialists from the public sector and this would cause a longer waiting period for patients there.
“The focus should be on improving healthcare for Malaysians first,” he said.
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