The private wing of the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (PPUM) cash cow, manipulated to benefit that core group of people who want to milk the system, a source said today.

Established a year ago, the unregulated unit has made a mockery of public medical care for the people, the source who requested anonymity told malaysiakini .

The consultants are doing private work under the guise of the private wing, during government office hours.

In effect, they are using the tax-payers money, and the hospitals facilities to profit by concentrating on their own private patients in the private ward, when poorer patients continue to languish on the increasingly lengthy waiting list in the non-private ward!

Parliamentary secretary for the Education Ministry Mahadzir Mohd Khirs had claimed in Parliament today that the private wing is designed to give patients a choice and to keep the experts from running to private practices.

That is a fallacy, the source slammed. The private wing is of no incentive. Doctors stay because they believe in what they are doing.

If you want doctors to stay, increase their salaries. But this whole idea of unregulated private work in a public hospital will eventually lead to a collapse of the system, the source added.

The lack of regulation also allowed the very unethical practice of poaching patients, where if a consultant realises that a patient is covered by insurance, the consultant would instil fear into that patient by emphasising the lengthy waiting list, so that the patient would eventually opt for treatment in the private ward instead.

This is despicable. It used to be that whether you were rich or poor, you had equal access to a consultant. That ethos has been completely destroyed in PPUM, said the source.

The source urged for the implementation of strict guidelines to prevent the abuse of the system and called on doctors to indulge in private practice only after hours.

Higher charges

In Parliament today, Teresa Kok Suh Sim (DAP-Seputeh) asked why hospitals like PPUM had been corporatised but Mahadzir, who is also BN MP for Sungai Petani, denied that they were.

They are not corporatised, only restructured. The treatment charges in PPUM and, for example, Kuala Lumpur General Hospital (KLGH), are supposed to be the same, excluding the daily ward costs, said Mahadzir.

Kok, however, painted a completely different picture, listing the different charges in PPUM and KLGH (excluding ward charges):

An angioplasty (therapeutic procedure to unblock an artery without surgery) in KLGH has a RM200 ceiling, not dependant on the number of arteries. PPUM charges a minimum RM4,000 (for a single artery) to RM15,000 (for several arteries);

A heart bypass operation in Penang GH costs RM500, while PPUM will perform the same for RM5,000. KLGH no longer performs the operation as this would fall under the National Heart Institute (IJN) which has been privatised. A similar operation in IJN costs RM18,000; and

An angiogram test to determine if there are artery blockages in the heart costs RM100 in KLGH, while one in PPUM costs RM800 and requires an initial RM1,000 deposit.

Why does PPUM charge more than 1,000 percent above KLGHs fees for some tests? Kok asked.

To this, Mahadzir reiterated that there was not supposed to be a difference in charges, and assured Kok that he would obtain further details concerning the difference of payments.