MAY 11 — Lately there have been numerous Facebook postings and also in the mainstream media about how good the Malaysian healthcare system is.

It had been highlighted many times by the grateful public as well as healthcare professionals and others that Malaysians can access high quality and costly care at government clinics and hospitals by paying only a pittance or in many cases, free.

A RM11,000 surgery is only charged RM31 or a RM30,000 ICU admission billed for RM245 to the patient.

Similarly in ambulatory care, an endoscopy that normally costs RM500 is billed at RM10 and that includes a one month supply of medication valued at RM300.

In government outpatient clinics, one has to pay only RM1 registration and that includes consultation by doctor, scan and one month's supply of medication with a total cost of RM200 to RM300 at times.

We wish this system can go on indefinitely and Malaysia has been very proud of what we are able to achieve spending much less than many countries in our healthcare budget.

However, there are real concerns by the authorities that this current form of healthcare is unsustainable as the healthcare budget increases exponentially year by year and hence the looming implementation of the voluntary healthcare Insurance as announced by the Health MInister recently.

What many fail to realise is that nothing is free as the balance of the RM11,000 surgery that was billed at RM31 to the patient had to be paid by someone else or from somewhere.

That usually means that the balance of RM10,969 was paid by other taxpayers or from other income sources that the government collects.

On the same note, the government, by spending RM10,969 on this patient's surgery, will have less to allocate to other needs of the public such as subsidised low cost housing, roads, public amenities etc.

Either we allocate and deflect the problem to national insurance schemes or try to minimise leakages etc, the total healthcare costs will continue to rise exponentially every year as the incidence of non-communicable diseases due to hypertension, diabetes and the likes becomes an epidermic.

Eventually, total healthcare costs would rise to an unsustainable point that Malaysia can no longer afford to provide even the most basic of care adequately.

The only real long-term solution to the unchecked rise in healthcare costs is to make every citizen responsible and pay for their own healthcare.

This can be achieved either by them paying for most of their healthcare out of pocket or taking their own medical insurance to pay for them.

The medical insurance scheme should be offered on a one-to-one basis so that the funds covered are only for the payer themselves rather than from a common pool.

There should be a safety net for those unable to pay even the lowest of fees with welfare schemes and the likes set up by the government.

Only by making it clear that every citizen who can afford needs to pay for their own healthcare that will lead and motivate  many to change their lifestyle and diet to decrease their healthcare costs.

Only by shifting the responsibilty of looking after their own health to every citizen instead of the government dishing out " free” healthcare will they think seriously about trying to keep healthy at all times.

Only by citizens taking ownership of their own health will the exponential rise in healthcare costs have a chance to be contained.

The "RM1” healthcare system has to stop in order to ensure better health for all Malaysians.

* Dr John Teo is a Consultant Obstetrician & Gynaecologist in Kota Kinabalu.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail Online.