GEORGE TOWN, Oct 23 — A Penang official today asked Putrajaya to consider a special allocation to mitigate the spike in healthcare costs due to the worsening haze.

Penang state executive councillor for health Dr Afif Bahardin said experts predict that the hazy conditions in the country could last till March next year, adding to the potential burden on the public healthcare system.

“We just found out that here is a budget cut for the Health Ministry but we hope that Putrajaya will set up a special fund to address increasing medical costs due to haze,” he told reporters at a press conference today.

He said the fund should be distributed to all states that are involved.

Dr Afif, together with state executive councillors Phee Boon Poh, Law Heng Kiang and state assemblymen Cheah Kah Peng and Yap Soo Huey, also handed over a memorandum on the haze issue to the Indonesian consulate at around noon today.

In the memorandum addressed to Indonesian president Joko Widodo, the state executive councillors appealed to Jakarta to take stern action against those behind the forest fires causing the haze.

“The Indonesian government should also take proactive action to ban any forest burning activities there to prevent this from happening again,” Dr Afif said.

He said this whole issues is not only an Indonesian issue but it involved countries in the region including Malaysia and Singapore.

He hoped Indonesia will also accept offered assistance to put out the forest fires.

Indonesian Consul for Consular Affairs Sofiana Mufidah, who accepted the memorandum on behalf of the Indonesian government, said Indonesia is currently taking steps to resolve the issue.

“The Indonesian authorities are serious in taking action against those behind the fires including charging 200 individuals and 30 corporations as at October 22,” she said.

She said they have also conducted water bombing using more than 80 million litres of water via helicopters and air tractors.

“We have more than 22,000 people on the ground including the police and firefighters in six provinces; Riau, Jambi, Sumatera Selatan, Kalimantan Barat, Kalimantan Tengah and Kalimantan Selatan,” she said.

She added that the Indonesian government is also implementing preventive measures such as building 60 water retention basins and water canals in Kalimantan Tengah, Kalimantan Selatan and Jambi provinces.

The haze conditions in certain parts of Malaysia have been fluctuating between 100 to near 300 under the Air Pollutant Index for the past weeks.

In this last week, schools in several states were closed due to the API readings in those state hitting very unhealthy levels.