While most health services are exempted from the goods and services tax (GST), teaching hospitals are still obliged by law to collect the tax from its patients.

According to Kampar parliamentarian Dr Ko Chung Sen, the hospitals affected include University of Malaya Medical Centre, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre, and Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital, all of which are hospitals attached to public universities.

He urged the government to exempt the services of teaching hospitals from GST.

“It is inconsistent of the government to tax the poor patients at teaching hospitals. The teaching hospitals are funded by the government under the Education Ministry and considered (to be) part of public services,” Ko ( right ) said.

GST was implemented starting April 1, with public health services and private health services registered under the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act exempted from the tax.

However the introduction of the tax has been marred with problems, with the six percent tax being mistakenly levied even on items explicitly listed as being GST-exempt or zero-rated, such as newspapers.