KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 — One out of five patients in private hospitals is expected to move to the already overburdened public healthcare system after the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is implemented tomorrow, doctors said.

Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) president Dr H. Krishna Kumar stressed, however, that the 10 to 20 per cent shift caused by the GST, set at a flat rate of six per cent, will be a temporary one lasting three to four months pending medical insurance top-ups.

“Every time there’s an economic slowdown, we get a shift like this,” Dr Krishna told Malay Mail Online in a recent interview.

“Many patients would initially shift from private to public hospitals when their medical insurance doesn’t cover the more expensive treatments because it didn’t take GST into account.

“After a while though, the insurance companies will ask them to top-up their insurance, so after that, they’ll shift back to private hospitals and it will equilibrate back to normal,” said the doctor, who has been in the government service for more than 25 years.

Another doctor at the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital told Malay Mail Online that public hospitals, which are heavily subsidised by the government, will not be able to cope with this influx of additional patients.

“Currently the number of staff is adequate, but not our facilities. Our hospital beds are always full,” said the doctor, who requested anonymity.

The doctor said there are no contingency plans to accommodate the anticipated influx of patients, adding, “If so, the hospital would have issued a memo to us, but I haven’t received anything.”

National news agency Bernama reported Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak as saying last month that Putrajaya bears 98 per cent of public healthcare costs.

The Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia said last December that private healthcare fees will rise by at least five per cent after the GST comes into effect.

Dr Krishna told Malay Mail Online that although medical treatment at private hospitals is exempt from the broad based consumption tax, the GST will be levied on other transactions, such as food and the hospital room.

“Even the patient ringing the bell to summon the nurse would incur the six per cent charge,” said the doctor.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam confirmed that there will be a “considerable” shift of patients from private to public hospitals after the GST comes into effect, but said it will stabilise over time.

“We are able to... we will take care of them, don’t worry... if they come to us, we will take care,” Subramaniam told Malay Mail Online recently, when asked if government hospitals are prepared to face an influx of patients.

Another sector that will be hit hard by the GST is nursing homes.

Dr Ejaz Ahmad Chaudry, CEO of Noble Care which runs old folks’ homes in Malaysia, said nursing home fees will rise by six per cent.

He told Malay Mail Online that the price hike will hit poorer patients the hardest and that it would be “very hard to finance by the family (in) most of (the) cases”.

Alex Yuan, head of the legal department of IHM Sdn Bhd, which runs the Sunshine Home nursing homes in Petaling Jaya and Penang, said he expects to see “a significant decline” in the number of people asking about their services in the next few months.

IHM’s petitions to the Customs Department requesting for nursing homes to be exempted from the GST have failed.

“Our appeals were unsuccessful,” Yuan said.

Detractors argue that the GST is “regressive” and that it takes a larger percentage of income from those in the low-income groups than from high-income earners.

Economists, however, view the GST favourably, saying that it is necessary to broaden the tax base, but cautioning the government to cut wastages and leakages at the same time to improve the country’s finances.

* Yiswaree Palansamy and Yap Tzu Ging contributed to this report.