It is time for the government to set up another royal commission - a Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of Health Services. This is another public service which has not met up with public expectations and there are plenty of grouses, both from the public as well as from the doctors and paramedical staff.
Even the health minister was unhappy with the waiting time at hospitals when he took charge. Now we have a new director-general of health and he, also, is quite unhappy with the state of affairs in government hospitals and various health facilities. So, we should not wait any longer for matters to get worse.
The announcement recently of an allowance increase for government doctors can only be welcomed but there are other areas that need to be addressed too.
Now is the right time to overhaul the health services, given that we have a prime minister who wants the very best for his people, a new health minister who is also a medical doctor at that and a new and very enthusiastic DG for health services.
The latter has risen up through the ranks and must be all too familiar with the ailments plaguing the health services sector. Being doctors, he and the minister surely must have some cures to restore to their ministry to better health.
It is also timely that a royal commission be set up as the National Health Financing Scheme will be soon hoisted on an unknowing public. With recent developments in the medical field, with a graying population and with a population with a longer life expectancies, the public's expectations of the health services run high.
Maybe the government should withhold rolling out this scheme for the moment and allow what is wrong with the health services to be set right first.
We used to have a health service which was the envy of many, if not almost all, developing nations. But now there are many things wrong with it. Many view the myriad of problems within the health services as a result of the ministry not having a proper direction.
Now with the economic downturn, there is a bigger demand for services at government hospitals and clinics. This has lead to more problems and unhappiness. The Health Ministry is one of those money-losing ministries, where expenditure leads to little or no income from the services it provides.
And over the years, its expenditure has climbed and climbed and the government now claims that it can ill-afford the amount without the national budget going into a bigger deficit.
Recommendations by a royal commission looking into the ills of the health services sector will surely go a long way towards ensuring the well-being of the public's health.