I welcome the Skim Perubatan Madani(SPM) initiative by the Ministry of Health(MOH) and encourage all eligible recipient to make full use of this initiative which provides free treatment for low-income families (B40) from private general practitioner (GP) clinics.
Kuching is selected as one of the first locations among 10 other districts throughout Malaysia for initiative to be implemented.
This initiative was launched by the MoH on the 15th June 2023, with an initial overall sum of RM 100 million which will benefit an estimated 700,000 B40 household throughout Malaysia.
For Kuching alone, this initiative is said to be benefiting 53,287 households, where for each Sumbangan Tunai Rahmah (STR) recipients, the government allocates RM250 for each household, RM125 for senior citizens (without their partner), and RM75 for singles.
The STR recipients can obtain as many free treatments as they want until the allocation for each household is finished. This is first a pilot project and once successfully implemented, the government may look to expand its coverage as well.
This will benefit all STR recipients and they will be registered automatically into this initiative automatically and all they need is to bring their IC to a REGISTERED GP clinic.
Currently there are 11 approved private general practitioner (GP) clinics in Kuching that is offering these services, and 7 applications which are currently still in process, and more are expected to join during the implementation of this initiative.
Any private GPs are also welcome to register with ProtectHealth Corp. to provide such services to the people.
STR recipients can check the list of these clinics at https://kelayakan-spm.protecthealth.com.my/find-clinics
One of the aims of this initiative is to make it more convenient for the B40 community to receive additional free treatment at partner private clinics without need to go the government hospitals or clinics when they are sick thus also hopefully helping in reducing the congestion these government facilities.
This also help strengthen the cooperation between the public and private healthcare to provide basic healthcare services for the people while helping the local economy as well.
That is why I encourage all STR recipient to make full use of this initiative on top of existing healthcare benefits such as PeKaB40 that provides free health screening for those eligible recipients.