From Private to Public Healthcare

Private healthcare, the preferred option for those who can afford it, is reportedly seeing a drop in patients with practitioners attributing the trend to the effects of increased cost of living and the ringgit’s depreciation against the US dollar which has made certain treatments more expensive.

A consultant cardiologist at a private hospital in Kuala Lumpur, said some of his patients have transferred to public hospitals. He noticed a 10% drop in number of admissions to private hospitals since April last year, when the goods and services tax (GST) was first implemented.

The drop has remained persistent towards the end of last year,” added the former president of Association of Private Hospitals. People have less disposable income. as a result of GST, the economy is not so buoyant, the ringgit has depreciated, and times are uncertain.

 

Correspondingly, the number of people seeking treatment at public hospitals appears to have risen. Public healthcare in Malaysia is almost free or certain treatments are heavily subsidised although patients have to endure a longer waiting period for procedures compared with private healthcare.

Public hospitals have noticed a 25% rise in the number of admission in public hospitals, maybe there has been a drifting of patients from the private sector to the public sector. Outpatient load in private clinics and hospitals has declined. This is because the outpatient treatment at government clinics is almost free.

It’s a sign of the times when even cancer patients are opting to cut back on essential chemotherapy at private facilities in order to trim expenses. The drugs can easily run into five figures per month and there is no replacement. (Patients) have to be given those drugs.

Private hospitals which have more patients with insurance might not be as badly affected, but given that about a quarter of patients at most facilities pay out of their own pockets, the impact on the hospitals’ bottom line is of concern.

Between 30% and 40% of patients at private hospitals are self-funded. We can safely assume that many of them have to tighten their expenses, they have to go to public hospitals. The drop in patients also varies greatly between different therapeutic areas. Some private clinics are seeing a drop of more than 50% while others seem to have smaller decline of 15% to 20%.

A large private hospital closed one of its wards due to the lack of patients,” he said, adding that he expected 2016 to be a difficult year for private healthcare, especially those requiring costly and chronic therapies.

Figures from the ministry show an increase in total admissions at government hospitals by 13.9%, from 2.16 million patients in 2013 to 2.46 million last year. The number of hospital outpatients also increased by 2.7 million or 5% from 54.2 million in 2013 to 56.9 million in 2014.