The Sarawak Government should look into expanding the Senior Citizen Health Benefit(SCBH) so that it will not just benefit the elderly, but all B40 Sarawakian household in need. This is so that those needy families in Sarawak can get additional healthcare services in the General Practitioner(GP) clinics when they are sick without congesting the existing government hospitals and clinics.
This is one of my hope to see in the upcoming Sarawak Budget 2025 that will be announced by Premier Abang Johari this coming Monday. With the expanding budget and additional revenues, one of the best investments they can make on top of other developments in the region, is to invest Health is generally a federal matter, but management of Public Health is on the concurrent list showing joint responsibility of State & Federal.
Thus, the Sarawak Government can play a bigger role in helping our people especially the poor in healthcare on top of our quest to get back more autonomy in healthcare among others.
This was shown when the Sarawak government allocated RM50 million for the SCHB initiative where senior citizens with a household income of RM7,000 and below per month are entitled to receive assistance for cashless outpatient treatment at panel clinics with a maximum limit of RM500 per person per year.
We welcome this as a good initiative and was modeled after the Skim Perubatan Madani that was introduced by the Ministry of Health when i was the Special Advisor in the Health Ministry. The Skim Perubatan Madani was a very beneficial initiative which benefitted 14,425 B40 households in places including Kuching, Bau, Betong, Bintulu, Miri, Mukah, Samarahan, Saratok, Serian, Sibu and Sri Aman, and also 83 GP Clinics that was registered.
This not only makes it easier for people to see GPs, rather than them go to the hospital for acute and mild conditions, which will cause congestion and more burden to our healthcare professionals in our government fascilities.
Based on public data, currently we have about 78,123 B40 Household in Sarawak. Thus i propose that the Sarawak Government allocates at least RM 100million for the initial implementation of the initiative and i believe such allocations will bring big impacts to those in need in Sarawak. Once this is properly implemented, we can even look at expanding it to the M40 household in Sarawak.
We want to ensure that Sarawakians especially the poor here regardless of their background do not have to worry about their financial situation and they can also get access to quality healthcare when they are sick.