SIME DARBY TAKEOVER OF IJN. PART 2. THE SAGA CONTINUES

Interesting, within 24hrs, thinks have changed again. The Sime Darby takeover of IJN is put on hold. Looks like more bargaining going on. The stated reason is concern on public cardiac care. There is a thorough study underway. I wonder what they are studying? Profitability? For who? For patient-care? For business? For others?
I for one am not against the privatisation of IJN. It have become too inefficient, benefitting mainly certain groups ( and I dont mean patients ) and not leading in the delivery of cardiac care in Malaysia. The non-paying queue is still too long, the cost is still too high for paying patients, the training program is selectively executed, the standard of care is no different from the other private institutions ( except for the heart transplant program ). In fact their paediatric cardiac surgery program may even be somewhat inferior to some of the private centers. We only have to observe that there are some in the government who have seen some of these inadequacies of IJN. The Ministry of Health have already ( a few years ago ) set in motion their own cardiac centers. These centers in Penang ( Penang GH Heart Center ), Sarawak ( Sarawak GH Heart Center ), Serdang ( Serdang Hospital Heart Center ), and JB ( JBGH Heart Center ), and also all the heart centers in the various universities, like UHKL, HUKM, USM Kubang Krian. In addition, we all know that the Ministry of Health have already begin to send patients to Bangalore for Paediatric Cardiac Surgery, thereby acknowledging that IJN cannot cope. The IJN consultants have been helping to do cardiac cases in Kota Kinabalu for umpteen years and still has not been able to train a local team to do the work. That speaks much of their training program. After so long ( I think about 10 years ), the IJN specialist still go by rotation, to do cases in KK, returning to KL after their weekly stint, leaving their aftercare in the hands of junior non-interventionist. This certainly does not speak well of a good standard of care and of their training program.
No, I am not against privatisation. But I am serious against "piratisation" . I hope that the thorough study that the DPM promised, will include a thorough study of the cost of IJN, just as we would do when I have to purchase a business entity.
I can see that if the GLC businessmen wants it, it is a matter of time before they get it. I only hope that the rakyat will not be short-changed again.
As always, those of us who see what is happening, and yet cannot do anything about it, can only throw our arms up in disgust and say " Malaysia Boleh ".