Prime Minister, the Treasury has slashed budgets across ministries this year to tackle the ballooning subsidy bill. But why, in the name of all that is sacred, is the Health Ministry — the very backbone of our nation’s well-being — being made the sacrificial lamb? A proposed cut of about RM3 billion (roughly 6.6%) to the Health Ministry’s RM46.5 billion 2026 allocation leaves the Ministry of Health (MOH) with even less breathing room than in 2025. This is not just poor governance; it is a dangerous, heartless betrayal of the Malaysian people.
Our public healthcare system was already gasping for air before this cut. We are chronically short of specialists, doctors, medical officers, and nurses. Hospitals are overcrowded, waiting lists are painfully long, and our frontline healthcare workers are exhausted and demoralised. Now, with this slash, you risk pushing the entire system into collapse. Deferred procedures, even longer queues for treatment, medicine shortages, deteriorating facilities, and burnt-out staff who can barely cope — these are not abstract statistics. These are real people: mothers waiting months for critical scans, elderly fathers denied timely surgery, and young families terrified of a simple illness turning fatal because help arrives too late.
This cut will melemahkan (weaken) the entire Malaysian public healthcare system, placing patients, healthcare workers, and essential services in a state of serious risk. The system was already operating under severe pressure. The human cost of these savings will be measured in unnecessary suffering, preventable deaths, and a brain drain that accelerates as our best medical talents flee to greener pastures. How can you sleep at night knowing that the price of your “efficiency” will be paid in the blood, sweat, and tears of ordinary Malaysians and the heroes who serve them?
Yet, there are far more obvious places to find that RM3 billion without touching health — the most vital investment any nation can make.
The government can and should immediately cancel the wasteful foreign worker contract reportedly worth up to RM3.2 billion, as highlighted by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Why continue outsourcing when the Health Ministry (or related agencies) has already successfully developed its own internal system, ePPAx (Sistem Pengurusan Pekerja Asing Bersepadu)? This homegrown digital platform was meant to streamline and integrate foreign worker management. Persisting with expensive external contracts while we have a functional in-house solution reeks of inefficiency, cronyism, or sheer incompetence. Stop throwing good money after bad. Save the rakyat’s hard-earned taxes and protect our healthcare instead.
While you’re at it, tell Ramanan and others to stop wasting taxpayers’ money, ministry funds, and agency resources on flashy signboards and self-promotion. Every ringgit spent on vanity projects is a ringgit stolen from hospital upgrades and medicine stocks.
And enough with the Madani branding obsession! Stop the Madani Mart. Stop the Kota Madani projects in Putrajaya. Halt all the Madani publicity funds and non-essential propaganda spending. These feel-good initiatives may polish your image, but they pale in comparison to the life-and-death reality of a crumbling healthcare system. Reinstate the full budget for the Health Ministry immediately. Malaysians did not elect a government to build branded “Madani” cities and marts while our hospitals teeter on the brink.
We understand the need for fiscal discipline amid rising subsidy costs — the fuel subsidy bill alone has swollen to a staggering RM7 billion a month. But your priorities are utterly backwards and hypocritical. On one hand, you lament the massive fuel subsidy burden. On the other, your government — through MITI — maintains anti-EV policies that set ridiculous minimum prices: RM100,000, RM200,000, and even RM250,000 for different categories of electric vehicles. This makes it artificially hard and expensive for ordinary Malaysians to switch to cleaner, more efficient EVs that could actually help reduce long-term fuel consumption and subsidy dependency.
Why punish citizens who want to do the right thing for the environment and their wallets? Remove these barriers. Let market forces and affordability drive EV adoption instead of protecting certain interests at the expense of national progress and environmental sense. Complaining about fuel subsidies while blocking cheaper EVs is policy schizophrenia.
Health is not a luxury — it is the foundation of a strong nation. Education, security, and economic growth all depend on a healthy population. You cannot build a “Madani” Malaysia on the broken backs of an underfunded healthcare system. Cutting here is not prudence; it is recklessness that endangers lives today and the future of our country tomorrow.
Prime Minister Anwar, the rakyat is watching. Stop risking our healthcare for political optics and wasteful spending. Prioritise people over propaganda. Restore the Health Ministry’s budget. Cancel the dubious contracts. Scrap the vanity projects. And for once, show real leadership by making decisions that heal rather than harm.
The lives of millions depend on it. Do not fail us.
Source : Free Malaysia Today
Source : Malaysiakini
