I refer to Anthony Raj's letter Healthcare needs to focus on the numbers in which he disagrees with my suggestion that the government should take back control of healthcare in our country. Raj suggested that there should be more private hospitals and that the government should outsource to these hospitals.

I would like to invite Raj to read an article in Aliran in which the former director-general of health, Dr Abdul Khalid Sahan argued why the free market does not work for healthcare and explained some of the negative effects of the rapid growth of private sector hospitals. There are also comments from The Coalition Against Healthcare Privatisation. The articles will explain why having more private hospitals is not the answer to basic human rights and the need for healthcare.

Moreover, existing private hospitals belong mainly to a few corporations; the largest being the KPJ Group. These corporations are still aggressively setting up more private hospitals. In the end, what sort of free market will we have? It will more likely be a monopoly. This is cause for concern and more reason for the government to take back control of healthcare. Besides, with the shortage of medical doctors, existing private doctors will serve a few hospitals at the same time and these hospitals will not necessarily belong to the same corporation. This is not going to create competition.

I would like to add that Raj is right about the corruption and abuse taking place in the medical sector, both government and private. It is common knowledge that a lot of wastage is taking place and adding to the high cost of healthcare, just like in many other government sectors.

Corruption will take place when there are opportunities to do so. More outsourcing to the private sector by the government sector will open up more opportunities for corruption. In the end, healthcare may even be more expensive than its present form.