KSN directed immediate measures to address critical issues at PPUM
called for a meeting to discuss the matter
PPUM is a teaching hospital
immediate action on decisions reached
discussion involved MOHE, MOH, the VC of UM and PPUM admin
policy-related issues arising from public complaints
including long waiting times
challenges in delivery of clinical services
issues related to skilled manpower and specialist expertise
— Bernama
MY COMMENTS:
First of all the Vice Chancellor will not know anything about managing a hospital. Managing a hospital and managing a university are two different things. So they are asking a teacher to manage patients, doctors, nurses, treating the sick. This idea of teaching hospitals is of course a tried and true system since modern medicine was invented.
But it does not mean they cannot screw it up. However today in Malaysia not only teaching hospitals but too many government hospitals are facing too many "challenges".
Firstly the acute shortages of doctors and specialists is a direct result of the really stupid and way past shelf life ketuanan policies where numbers of doctors are still subject to some quota number stuck on somebody's wall. So now we all pay the price. And the price paid by the politicians is that you will get kicked out again and again at the next polls. Its as simple as that.
Then there is not enough money to pay for all the medical services. The gomen just announced that they are cutting RM3.0 billion from medical services. Report: Treasury Wants RM3b Cut To Health Ministry’s 2026 Budget By CodeBlue | 29 April 2026
Despite no money there is wastage / leakage in procurement, building new facilities, follow through services etc. Building new facilities is crucial. The gomen must build even more facilities. But the wastage and the leakages occur through overpricing, who gets the construction contracts and things like that. Old ketuanan style. Nothing has changed.
I know one gomen hospital where they would tell some classes of patients that their medication would be delivered to their houses - for free. Wow! I know because I was a beneficiary. So someone must benefit (projek dan kontrak) from getting the contract to deliver the meds to peoples' houses. There must be thousands of home deliveries.
Lately they have changed this a little. I must pay a fee of RM10.00 if I want them to send the meds to my house. (You can also pick up the meds at the hospital pharmacy but you may have to wait - sometimes for hours). So I pay RM10 and the guy sends the meds to my house. But I live 40 km away and I can assure you the cost of the delivery will be more than RM10.00. Even the packaging itself is expensive. First there is a cold pack for some meds, then they pack it inside sterile plastic, sometimes there is styrofoam and then the whole thing is put inside a nice cardboard box. And it must be delivered by car with air conditioning. All this costs money. Then toll, petrol plus the delivery driver's salary. I used to tell them, "Look I am already here let me pick up my medication from the pharmacy". They will say, 'Takpa Encik. You go home. We will send it to your house'. As I said someone has to benefit, someone makes money from the projek dan kontrak to provide the delivery services. This is wastage. And they want to cut RM3.0 billion from the medical services budget.
Back to the UMMC issue.
The oldest teaching hospitals in Europe are hundreds of years old. In Holland the Dutch University Medical Centre (UMC) system is a distinctive model in which the medical school, teaching hospital, specialist care, and biomedical research are integrated into a single institution. Rather than a university merely being affiliated with a hospital, the hospital and medical faculty operate as one organisation.
Perhaps this is the model they are trying to establish here. But it will not work as well here. (I have a suggestion). Here the culture is different. Here they are not as professional. Here, regardless of the very high qualifications, the staff still behave like kampong people. I get really irritated when the doctor refuses to talk or even smile at me. And then you have the village idiots who gossip with the other staff about personal matters, while treating the patient. As though the patient is a nuisance and they are doing you a favour. And I have seen the staff at hospitals play with their smartphones instead of attending to the patients. So the professionalism is lacking. It is still kampong behaviour.
But not all. The pharmacists, nurses and staff who went out of their way to assist me. But these were individual examples of par excellence. It is not built into the system. The system as a whole does not guarantee excellence. It is almost random. Like it must be your lucky day. Or not your lucky day.
Believe me I dont expect the KSN or the KSUs to understand all this. Too much reading on a Sunday. Or on any day. Retirement is close anyway.
Here is my suggestion: place the administration of all the teaching hospitals (staffing, procurement, maintenance etc) under the Ministry of Health. Create a department - Department of Teaching Hospitals. WHY? Because the MOH are the content experts. Or they shud be. They know best how to own, operate/manage and maintain a hospital. The universiti VCs do not have the skills to manage hospitals.
All staffing, procurement, maintenance, ops shud be under the MOH - like any other hospital. Except the teaching and the curricula part should be left to the medical faculty of the university that is affiliated with that hospital. Plus the university shud have an input on the selection, promotion etc of the teaching staff. Leave the rest to the MOH.
The UMMC is not the only teaching hospital that has problems. The problems become more acute when these outfits become 'semi-privatised'. This means they start behaving like private hospitals and charge the patients very high fees. How exhorbitant? RM10,000 for an angiogram, RM40,000 if a stent is also involved (but that was NOT a teaching hospital - just a gomen hospital turned 'semi-private'.)
I think these gomen hospitals turned semi-private are getting carried away. They charge so much money, like many of the other predatory private hospitals we have in the country. The difference is the gomen hospital was set up using MY MONEY!! I already paid for the building of the hospital, for the doctors and nurses salaries, for the medicines etc. You use my money to build a hospital and to pay yourselves salaries and then you charge me money again - for the second time.
So what is the final outcome of all this? Kick them out. I am not going to vote for these idiots. Just kick them out. Negeri Sembilan is coming up in SIX days. KICK THEM OUT.
