| Syazwani Hj Rosli |
A BUDGET of $349,597,790 has been allocated to the Ministry of Health for 2016-2017 fiscal year. This was announced by the Minister of Health, YB Dato Paduka Dr Awang Haji Zulkarnain bin Haji Hanafi, at the Legislative Council (LegCo) Meeting yesterday.
The proposed budget is based on three strategic priorities for the next five years with the vision ‘Together Towards A Healthy Nation’. This is in tune with the efforts of the Ministry of Health (MoH) in achieving Brunei Vision 2035, the minister said.
In his budget speech, the minister elaborated on the priorities that included making health as everyone’s business, prevention and control of non-communicable diseases, consolidation and realignment of healthcare services for providing added value to the customers and prevention of wastages.
“Brunei Darussalam has achieved several significant milestones in the last 20 years. One of them is increase in life expectancy from 73 to 76 years for men and 76 to 79 years for women. However, these achievements do not mean that we can be complacent.”
He said the ministry has realised that there are more challenges ahead in achieving high-quality health for the people. Unpredictable global economy, changes in population demographic as well as the rise in the numbers of non-communicable diseases are some of them.
The Minister of Health, YB Dato Paduka Dr Awang Haji Zulkarnain bin Haji Hanafi, speaking at the Leg-islative Council (LegCo) Meeting. – DEAN KASSIM
He added that the ministry is concerned of the rise in the number of youth between 20 and 30 years old diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes. This has implications not only in the increase of cost of treatment but it also affects the productivity of these youth, he clarified.
Apart from these, the quality of services provided by MoH also needs to be addressed, the minister noted. “Complaints from patients regarding the waiting time at all levels – whether it is for doctor’s appointment, medications, hospitalisation or surgery – and also about unsatisfactory service, shortage of medicines, staff, ambulances and facilities, are not anything new,” he continued.
“Such complaints have been raised repeatedly and we hear it almost every day either through telephone, social media or newspapers.”
The ministry, he said, welcomes feedbacks from members of the public as they show how important is health.
In this regard, the MoH has taken the back-to-basic approach by re-evaluating five important aspects.
The first aspect, he said, was the vision, mission and objective of the ministry in the present and future context.
The minister underscored that the healthcare service has been in existence for more than 100 years and what were effective over the last five to 10 years are no longer relevant at present and hence the need to review its vision, mission and objectives.
The second aspect is to recognise the customers in terms of who they really are. He said patients should not be seen in terms of their diagnosis alone but as individuals whose illness having impacts not only on themselves but also on members of their family, friends and employers.
The third aspect is the understanding of the customers’ expectations and the fourth aspect is to evaluate the performance of MoH by far. The last aspect, as stressed by the minister is to consider and think of future planning.
“The ministry realises that by seeking resolutions to the issues raised we must understand the root causes of the problems,” he continued. “This matter requires views and advices from relevant stakeholders. What’s more important is for us to take collaborative approach towards resolving the issues.”
In the near future, the minister emphasised that the main focus of the MoH is to enhance the customers’ satisfaction through several measures such as basic courtesy, reduction of waiting period at all levels, ensuring the availability of supply of medicines and basic services, continuous improvement of staff’s quality and reputation and strengthening the quality of services through consolidation of services, facilities and existing infrastructures.
He also added that it is inevitable that the cost of healthcare will increase with changes in demography and development of advanced technologies.
“We must work together in figuring out how we can provide resilient healthcare services that are of high-quality in order to be safe, timely, comprehensive, cost-effective, responsive, affordable, precise and obtainable in the long run for the entire population of the country in line with the policy of universal health coverage,” the minister noted.
He also called for the citizens to join hands and work together with MoH to make health a shared responsibility for realising the national aspiration towards improving the quality of life and well-being at par with top 10 nations worldwide.
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