The Malaysian Insight

EVEN with money to pay for Covid-19 care and treatment, patients are struggling to get admitted to private hospitals as there are not enough beds, Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia president Dr Kuljit Singh said.

“We’ve had so many Covid-19 patients who were willing to pay but we could not give them beds. It is not a question of money; there are many paying patients who are actually admitted to government hospitals,” he told The Malaysian Insight.

“They want to come out of government hospitals to be admitted to private hospitals for treatment, and they are willing to pay, but we cannot give them beds because we are so full.

“The issue now is not the cost but the beds. There are no beds to give.”

Private hospitals in the Klang Valley are running at almost full capacity.

“We always have a limited number of beds that are designated for Covid-19 cases in intensive care units and normal wards,” Kuljit said.

He said this is because private hospitals do not have sizable manpower like government hospitals, and Covid-19 care requires constant monitoring, especially the more severe cases.

Apart from that, he said, Covid-19 patients have to be segregated from the others.

“From the infrastructure aspect, it is another reason why beds in private hospitals are limited in terms of the number of Covid-19 patients we can take,” he said.

“That is the reason why all private hospitals are normally full – the limited number of beds we can actually designate for Covid-19 patients.”

On the percentage of beds allotted for Covid-19 patients, he said it varies according to hospitals.

Losses due to decanting

Kuljit also said private hospitals may suffer financial losses as government hospitals decant patients to the private sector as public health facilities are overstretched.

“There is a possibility that out of this process of decanting, private hospitals will incur losses,” he said.

However, he said it is still early days to estimate the quantum of losses as it has only been three to four weeks since the process began.

“We will only know at a later date how much losses we will absorb in this process of decanting patients. All of this we are doing in good faith to help the government,” he said.

The cost of treatment of the patients decanted to private hospitals will be borne by the government. Putrajaya has also set a ceiling price of RM45,000 per patient.

The government has started sending non-Covid-19 patients to private hospitals due to emergencies caused by the pandemic with daily new cases and deaths continuing to increase.

Kuljit also rejected claims that private hospitals are not doing enough to help the government at a time when the nation’s health resources are overstretched.

He said the private sector has already rendered its services as much as it could.

“Private hospitals have already given 30-40% discounts on their normal rates for the patients that have been decanted,” he said.

“Unlike the government, which has the Finance Ministry to tap into, private hospitals will have to cover their own costs and they have to get their payments from the patients. Therefore, there is no way they can go below a certain level.”

He said there will be losses that the hospitals will have to absorb, adding that they have already started seeing losses in other areas such as lower patient count.

“We can do it for a few patients, but for many patients, eventually, it will not be sustainable,” he said.

Kuljit also said it is best for Covid-19 patients, especially those in advanced stages of infection, to be at government facilities as they have the resources and capability to care for them.

He also drew attention to the fact that many people do not realise that treatment at government hospitals are equally, if not more, expensive than that at private hospitals.

However, patients do not feel the pinch as the cost is borne by the government.

Director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said last month that the Health Ministry has allocated RM39 million for the outsourcing of patients from government hospitals to private care this year.

This is more than three times the RM11 million allocated for the same purpose last year. – August 9, 2021.