I refer to the report Medicine man's 10 years as bogus surgeon describing a Malaysian traditional medicine man who posed as a surgeon for a decade in Shah Alam, Selangor. I would like to commend the Ministry of Health's raiding party which raided the bogus doctor's/ bomoh's premises which comprised no less of top officials from Putrajaya, the Selangor Health Department, reporters and the police.

Hopefully, the MOH would now zero in on 'dukuns' and 'pawangs', especially in the East Coast, beauticians who use unsterile equipment risking patients to hepatitis and ayurvedic and Chinese herbal medicine sinsehs whose unresearched roots are known to cause severe peptic ulcer disease and kidney failure.

But I somewhat note with amazement how it took the MOH 10 years to corner this bomoh when almost the whole of Shah Alam and in all likelihood most of Selangor and KL knew of the bomoh's activities especially since many VVIPs, VIPs, professionals including PhD holders and reportedly even close relatives of medical doctors frequented his establishment which was known for it miraculous cures.

Especially puzzling was the fact that the bomoh's clinic was located less then two kilometres from the headquarters of the Selangor Health Department and almost at the doorstep of the Selangor police contingent. The director-general of Health has reportedly taken the opportunity of the raid to yet again remind the remaining 70% of private medical practitioners (GPs) of the dire consequences they face if they don't register their clinics by the end of this month.

That the bomoh has been around for 10 years and that he was right next to the Selangor Health Department and that the raid was timed 19 days before the deadline for private practitioners to register their clinics in accordance with the new Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Regulations 2006 Act appear to be nothing more then a cheap publicity stunt timed to cow and intimidate private general practitiooners to register their clinics. These childish antics by the Health DG, supported by accommodating reporters in the mainstream media, has got to stop as it will only bring ridicule to the medical profession.

If registration was just filling out forms and sending them out, every practitioner would have done it by now. But anyone who has gone for this registration exercise will tell you that it is nothing more then another Fomema in disguise. In fact, it is truly disgusting when suppliers of emergency equipment and ECG machines try to do a hard sell on the doctor and even remind the GP of the fines and jail terms if they don't equip themselves by the end of the month. This is clearly bordering on blackmail.

The DG must be reminded that he is not dealing with schoolchildren here but colleagues of his in the private sector. He must be further reminded that there is deep distrust about this new act and innate unhappiness at how it was passed in parliament and how 'agreement' was extracted out of certain Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) office-bearers who were government servants and his subordinates. These office-bearers who were civil servants should have stood down during negotiations but instead compromised the rights of the almost 8,000 private practitioners in this country.

There is no substitute for dialogue and the faster the Health DG realises it, the better it is for everyone rather than approaching this entire affair in such a confrontational and sensationalist manner.

The Health DG's obsession with this new act appears to have 'de-focused' him from greater priorities - the still poor access to specialist care in hospitals, prolonged waiting time for surgery, still unanswered mortality and morbidity rates in government hospitals, virtually absent teaching or educational opportunities for private practitioners in government hospitals and the doubtful strategies concerning the ever looming presence of dengue, hand, foot and mouth disease, bird flu and the ballooning incidence of heart disease, hypertension and diabetes mellitus in young Malaysians.

Too much time has been wasted waving the big stick instead of adopting mutual constructive ways of improving the healthcare of the average Malaysian.