{"id":639951,"date":"2026-04-30T05:53:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T05:53:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639951\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T05:53:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T05:53:08","slug":"exclude-public-hospitals-from-govt-spending-cuts-says-mma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/639951\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclude public hospitals from govt spending cuts, says MMA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>KUALA LUMPUR: Do not let spending cuts worsen public healthcare delivery, the Malaysian Medical Association has urged the government.<\/p>\n<p>Its president Datuk Dr Thirunavukarasu Rajoo said a proposed RM3.06bil budget cut for the Health Ministry, representing 6.6% of its operating budget, would be a significant reduction to a system already under severe strain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMalaysia is short of nearly 11,000 specialists, while nursing vacancies stand at 18%,\u201d he said in a statement on Thursday (April 30). \u201cHospitals nationwide are operating at or near full capacity.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dr Thirunavukarasu said any spending adjustments must be in administrative areas, without jeopardising medication, hospital maintenance, equipment and staffing.<\/p>\n<p>He also urged the government to honour its decision to exempt healthcare from the civil service hiring freeze.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, the Finance Ministry issued guidelines to ministries and agencies to reprioritise their operating expenditures following the ongoing global supply challenges and rising subsidy obligations.<\/p>\n<p>ALSO READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thestar.com.my\/news\/nation\/2026\/04\/29\/mof-confirms-treasury039s-directive-for-govt-agencies-to-cut-spending-due-to-global-supply-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MOF confirms Treasury&#8217;s directive for govt agencies to cut spending due to global supply crisis<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The directive emphasised that these expenditure adjustments will be carried out without compromising critical public services or economic stability.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Thirunavukarasu said public hospitals, which serve 70% of Malaysians, cannot tolerate any further budget cuts.<\/p>\n<p>He cited Hospital Ampang as an example, whose system collapsed for 33 hours last Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors reportedly said the hospital has not been upgraded since 2007 and was still running on Windows XP, an operating system retired over a decade ago, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDuring this time, patient records were inaccessible, blood test results were delayed, and prescriptions could not be processed,\u201d he said, adding that doctors reverted to manual documentation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs Malaysia\u2019s national referral centre for haematology, it cares for some of the most vulnerable patients,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Dr Thirunavukarasu added that four days later, a burst pipe flooded the operating theatre and surgical equipment had to be moved, leaving patients with even longer wait times.<\/p>\n<p>He said the Health and Finance ministries must provide a clear explanation of how this was allowed to happen.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KUALA LUMPUR: Do not let spending cuts worsen public healthcare delivery, the Malaysian Medical Association has urged the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":639952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,101118,786,8034,500,309887,17200,785,119291,208264,85,112268],"class_list":["post-639951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-budget-cuts","tag-fighting","tag-health-ministry","tag-healthcare","tag-hospital-ampang","tag-malaysian-medical-association","tag-mma","tag-moh","tag-public-healthcare","tag-sports","tag-thirunavukarasu-rajoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/639952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}