Thursday, December 18, 2008

Leave IJN alone, please!

I am with Gunasegaran of The Star, Rocky and Sime Darby Watch on this one. The proposal by Sime Darby to privatise Institut Jantung Negara (National Heart Institute) is driven by pure profiteering. There's no other way to look at it.

IJN has a public purpose. It provides a fair price for all Malaysians who need cardiac attention.

What can privatisation do that is BETTER than the solid service already being provided by IJN?

Malaysians must surely have learnt by now that privatisation is a code word for profits to a select few and higher costs for the ikan bilis of Malaysia.

I am normally quite circumspect about most matters. But any issue of privatisation just riles me because the costs almost always outweighs the benefits to Malaysians.

To the federal government ministries and agencies looking at this proposal, just stop this and put a TOLAK rubber stamp in RED ink on the proposal, please. 

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Will someone please remind Sime Darby of their Corporate Social Responsibility? Social Conscience?

Nasirudin Anjud said...

Dear Minimis,

I am also with you and everybody else on this,

least I can do is to write a support letter to rocky though as you can see my minglish strength is quite limited.

I tried my best though..... see...

http://nasirudinanjud.blogspot.com/2008/12/alarm-alarm-ijn-takeover-sicko-horror.html

All concern citizen, please support us on this....

May god be with us......

Anonymous said...

I totally agree. IJN is suppose to benefit the people. Not for private profit. Damn the gov.

Pat said...

OMG what's up with this, CT?

'Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.' (Hamlet, Act 1, Sc iv)

Pat

Anonymous said...

Isnt IJN deeply in the red....the MOF was supposed to use EPF monies to bail this hospital out.....it's a mystery why Sime want to buy this place....Guna fella didnt do his research right.....and barking up the wrong tree.....

mamasita said...

IJN is now planned to cater to those who can pay..siapa tak mampu bayar,pergi mampuslah,and that is why they want to privatise IJN.
As though the rakyat has not suffered enough..or maybe thats the way to end quickly the sufferings of those who cant afford??

Navi said...

Najib's statement that IJN will have to cater to the poor just doesn't jive. No privatized deal has been to the benefit of the rakyat, especially the poor. So stop bullshitting and call the whole deal off.
We say NO to privatization of IJN.

walla said...

The question the decision-makers should ask themselves is which is the bigger good that is to be served from privatization - social service or corporate performance?

In the case of corporate performance, we have seen how power, telecoms, roads, water, education and banks have not only shown lacklustre performance but they have also rode roughshod over and rankled the rakyat while raising the cost of services to such an extent we have lost opportunities for higher competitiveness. Is this what Malaysia is all about? Western dreams and eastern nightmares?

And when you think of it, the difference between privatised and non-privatised is just about management efficiency in making sure that bigger pays lead to better services. This requirement shouldn't be just the province of the private sector, in which case why should services and assets which impact low-income groups in life-critical areas be privatised? Don't the buildings, equipment and methods belong to the govt, and thus the rakyat in the first place?

The last one recalls, IJN was applauded for its heart transplant efforts and there was even some mention the govt would give it RM100 million. It's also undergoing some expansion at the moment.

So why the sudden about-turn to privatise it when its surgeons are even asked to help out at Selayang referral hospital for the very reason of specialist shortage there?

If the challenge is because the IJN specialists need better pays, the govt should just find the money to give them higher pay..and cut all strings attached to govt salary scales for specialists.

Fear about creating precedence? Get those who want to privatise to queue up for two years to have heart surgery for their valve problems at the other hospitals, already looking like war-zones. Or find the RM80K-200K quickly to pay the private hospitals which will after throwing the bill at you charge you for even one phone call, tripled, to try and get the money.

Wherever they may be, decision-makers must see things at the ground and address the root causes. If it's high-carb diets and bad lifestyles, then go and root out those problems. If it's abuse of admissions, then be more stringent. If it's poor testing and assays, then solve these at the lab side. If it's the absence of a national medical insurance net to cover critical diseases, then revive those three studies that sit somewhere in the JPM and MOH offices.

A heart surgeon is not an engineer or quantity surveyor or minister. In his hands lives are yanked back in stark drama. I should know, i have been sending the latest surgical techniques and pharma reviews to Ezani.

Heart disease is the biggest problem facing our fatty bombom population. The cohort which gets it the most is also the segment which cannot afford private treatment.

If the decision is made to privatise IJN to SD, you will just get higher bills slammed onto families where the only solution left to them will just be a funeral expense within months. The efficiency of IJN is not going to rise remarkably, but its social role is going to drop like a ton of bricks.

Health is a multiplex thing and there should be integrated efforts involving other areas as well.

Meanwhile what expertise can SD bring to IJN that the govt of malaysia can't?

As with the use of EPF money to bailout Valuecap, the govt must be more transparent in the way it wants to do things. For a start, shame should hang over its head on how it has privatised tolled roads and TNB.

MNCs and SMEs are complaining about high energy costs in this downturn while in turn TNB has to pay billions to IPPs for power it doesn't use. Meanwhile motorists are wondering what has happened to that ten percent discount past midnight.

Bottomline is this: sell a few vacant govt buildings or plots, and give the money to the IJN specialists.

tangan sikit sakit.

mekyam said...

goodness, is nothing to be left unexploited by the grasping class?

we really have to keep these tikus away from whatever labus are left in our country!