I refer to the new Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Regulations 2006 Act that affects close to 10,000 general practitioners and why it should be placed on the back burner.

There are now added costs for doctors as a result of the new Act which for some reason was rushed through Parliament rather hastily and appears to give almost dictatorial powers to the director-general of Health. No doubt as a result of this haste, there will be a price to pay when medico-legal aspects of the Act are played out in open court when a dispute arises.

The string of new costs will be passed on to patients and this Act will ultimately mean more bureaucracy and less treatment. Haven't we have had enough of this situation? Doctors, by and large, would like to see less red tape and more savings passed on to patients in light of rising treatment costs. Why RM1,500 to register a clinic and why such draconian fines and humiliating jail terms?

The creators of this Act must be brought forth now and doctors be given the liberty to ask them why this Act is so necessary. It appears to have been drafted by certain Ministry of Health (MOH) officials without consultations with doctors and passed through Parliament sneakily.

Ever since ventures like Fomema came into existence, various elements in the MOH have continuously been on this money-making quest. Various X-ray licencing procedures were similarly applied onto many general practitioners in the guise of safety. For some very odd reason, your X-ray machine is subject to annual calibrations, not by the manufacturer, but by third-party companies appointed by the MOH.

And guess what? The owners of these third-party calibration companies are almost invariably ex-MOH staff. And yes, these calibrations will cost you money sometimes to the tune of thousands of ringgit. Furthermore, to comply with radiology licencing procedures, practitioners are forced to attend safety courses annually also costing thousands of ringgit. Yes, you guessed it right, again these are conducted by ex-MOH staff. The reason for the calibrations and safety courses? 'We must keep up with standards.' The added cost? 'Well, just pass it on to the consumer'.

Many GPs are now reluctant to buy an X-Ray machine - an important diagnostic tool which can certainly provide better service to patients - because of the hassle. Examples of money-making ventures involving the MOH stretch from pharmaceuticals, consumables and medical equipment to new hospital buildings, building extensions, new specialty units that end up as white elephants, wasteful IT software and hardware, unnecessary overseas trips to now its latest money- making venture - security labeling for medical products.

If there is a bit of conscience and frugality on the part of the MOH, it will go a long way in trying to fix the problem of the high cost of patient treatment costs and poor pay for health professionals.

The MMA, which currently is in utter shambles and further handicapped by an incumbent president from the government sector, is not going to raise a whimper and therefore the end situation would be patients having artificially inflated prices courtesy of the MOH's brilliant money-making strategies.

On the other hand, you will have doctors struggling to comply with draconian legislation, closing up their clinics, ending up as doctors running illegal clinic with no licences and, of course ultimately ending up in jail.

The field of medicine is neither black nor white. A large part is grey where doctors require discretion and act in good faith. Today, with all these regulations, good faith will take a beating. Word of mouth is certainly important and one of the reasons many doctors don't return home after qualifying overseas is the shameful presence of irrelevant regulations solely for the purpose of making money for the MOH cronies at the expense of patient treatment.

The MOH should first put its own house in order. There is no point hitting private entities with regulations right from fee regulations and toxic disposable acts to impossible hospital and radiology licencing procedures. No doctor, no matter how qualified and entrepreneurial he is, will want to risk opening a clinic now. The new Act gives you a feeling that there could be something far more sinister to its introduction.