KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 – The government should take lessons in managing the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in the long run, said Information Chief Shahril Hamdan.
He asserted that the government should never be arrogant by making claims that they have found a solution to it because the virus may come back.
“This means if the number of infection declines in two or three months after the country achieved full vaccination, it doesn’t mean we have to be complacent and over confidence.
“So that is the first lesson from the God and we would never know when it will come to an end. So, we must always be prepared,” he said.
He said this in the ‘live’ ‘Exclusive 60 Minutes with Shahril Hamdan, Until When…?’ on the ‘Youtube Awok Kiter Channel’ channel, last night.
The Youth Vice-Chief added that the government needs to review the expenditure given to the Health Ministry from time to time.
“We see in the Klang Valley and several other states, the utilization rate of Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds has reached a critical level and even at one point there was 100 per cent utilization in some states. Here is another lesson for our healthcare system, although it used to be properly managed under the Barisan Nasional (BN) government.
“Any kind of illness, even if there is no insurance, will be treated in the public health system. That is not available in all countries, this is our pride and we should defend it,” he said.
However, according to Shahril, the government currently spends only four per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the health sector compared to other developed countries.
He said if the government did not learn from mistakes of having an insufficient capacity, he feared that future generations would blame the current administration.
“It means that our health budget is four per cent of GDP compared to other developed countries such as Japan 11 per cent, Germany 11 per cent and Korea 11 per cent.
“Is this the last epidemic we have to deal with in 10, 20 or 30 years? Who knows a similar thing will occur again? So, think of the future generation as well.”
