KPJ: To Expand locally before going Abroad



KPJ Healthcare Bhd will cap future dividend payouts at maximum of RM 80mil of its net profit to allocate more cash for the repayment of its borrowings, executive director Aminudin Dawam said.

“Our dividend payouts have always been around 40%-50% of net profits, so our Board has advised us to put a cap in absolute terms of up to RM 80mil payout,” Aminudin said on the sidelines of the Invest Malaysia conference.

“Now we are paying about RM 70mil to RM 80mil a year and we will continue with this.“If our net profit is more than this, then it will still be capped at up to RM 80mil and the excess profit, which we are confident of growing, will be used to offset our debt,” he added.

The largest public-listed hospital group by bed-count in Malaysia said the employment of a high gearing strategy is to help it to grow further.

“This is how we expand and we have done this before. There have been some lean years too. For the last seven to eight years, dividends have been around 50% although there is no formal dividend policy by the company,” its general manager of investor relations Khairul Annuar Azizi said.

KPJ also plans to spend some RM 1.4bil in capital expenditure (CAPEX) within the next five years to increase its bed-count from 3,000 now.

“Our plan is to add another seven hospitals and these will add another 1,000 beds to the group. Meanwhile, some of our existing hospitals will expand their capacity and this will add another 500 beds,” Aminudin said.

The seven new hospitals will be located in Perlis, Johor, Sarawak, Negri Sembilan and Selangor.

“We are in the midst of an aggressive expansion in Malaysia and we don’t want to overstretch ourselves (abroad) at the moment,” he said.

Overseas expansion, if any, would be through brownfield acquisitions, with Indonesia being the main target market.

Total capex allocated for this year is RM350mil, he added.

On the weak ringgit, he said KPJ had to pass on the additional costs arising from higher prices of imported equipment to its patients.

“As a private profit-generating company, we have to do this but we also have economies of scale, so this amount is controlled. We are doing our best to be more efficient in other areas – in how we do business and in other processes,” he added.

/theSTAR 27-07-2017


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Patients moving to Public Hospitals



Private hospitals have seen about a 30% drop in the number of patients as they turn to the already over-stretched public hospitals, said Association of Private Hospitals of Malaysia (APHM) president Datuk Dr Jacob Thomas.
He said patients turned to public hospitals as there was no GST and treatment was almost free, making them an affordable and attractive alternative.
Dr Jacob urged the Health Ministry to collaborate with the private sector since patients faced long waiting times for MRIs, and CT and PET Scans, while most private hospitals had excess capacity.
“We understand that 25% of patients seen in public hospitals have access to private healthcare insurance. We can manage them in our private hospitals,” he said.
He added that some hospitals offered the ministry the services at reduced prices.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said that when patients were unable to afford private hospitals, they fell back on public hospitals.
“Because of the co-existence, the issue of affordability to a great extent, has been met although there are challenges,” he said.
“For the long term, the ministry is formulating voluntary health insurance”, he said.
Previously, Dr Subramaniam said that the scheme was voluntary and aimed at ensuring that the cost of private medical treatment in the country was reasonable and affordable.
/theSTAR 27-07-2017
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Infectious Diseases on the Rise



Every year, more people die of tuberculosis (TB) than from dengue and HIV-related complications.

There were 1,945 TB deaths from 25,739 cases last year, a 14.7% increase over 1,696 deaths from 24,220 cases in 2015, according to the Health Ministry.

In comparison, there were 237 dengue fever deaths from 101,357 cases last year and 336 deaths from 120,836 cases in 2015.























Malaysian health authorities are now concerned because infectious diseases such as TB, leptospirosis and rabies, which the country managed to successfully curb in the past, are making a comeback, said former Institute of Respiratory Medicine director Datuk Dr Abdul Razak Muttalif.





TB is responsible for the most deaths among all infectious diseases reported in Malaysia, he added.

Malaysia managed to bring down TB cases from more than 30,000 in 1960 to fewer than 6,000 cases in the mid-1980s but Dr Abdul Razak said the cases gradually increased again from the mid-1990s.


It was initially fuelled by the increasing number of HIV cases (from weakened immune systems) and a little by migrant workers in the late 1990s, he said.

Dr Abdul Razak said one factor contributing to the high numbers currently was the delay in diagnosis and treatment, resulting in the disease spreading.

One reason for the late diagnosis could be traced to patients seeing doctors for coughs in clinics.
Without laboratory facilities, some doctors did not get a chest X-ray done to detect it early, he added.

Other groups could pick up TB because of risk factors such as those with diabetes and HIV, as well as prisoners, drug users and migrants. Dr Abdul Razak said Malaysia was detecting more cases also because more people were being screened.

Meanwhile, leptospirosis, commonly known as rat urine disease, remains a concern in Malaysia, as the number of cases has steadily increased from 2,268 in 2011 to 8,291 in 2015, although the figure dropped last year to 5,284. Statistics show that in 2011, 55 people died of the disease, 78 in 2015, and 52 last year.

Universiti Putra Malaysia professor of veterinary bacteriology Datuk Dr Abdul Rani Bahaman said it was not easy to diagnose leptospirosis as there were more than 40 serovars, or strains of Leptospira bacteria and more are expected to be discovered.

Leptospirosis could easily be misdiagnosed because its symptoms are similar to those of malaria, influenza and dengue. They include headache, diarrhoea, body ache, muscle pain and jaundice, which can cause it to be mistaken for these viral diseases, Dr Abdul Rani said.

However, those returning from jungle trips or recreational areas with high fever should be screened for leptospirosis and treated with antibiotics as a treatment or preventive measure before the infection becomes critical, he added.

Encouragingly, statistics showed that leprosy – which spreads through inhaled droplets of moisture – is on the decline. There were 206 new cases last year, compared to 210 in 2015. In 2012, there were 325 new cases.

 /theSTAR19-07-2017

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Towards Medicine Prices Disclosure and Standardisation



The Health Ministry will hold a meeting with the National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency and the Pharmaceutical Industry players to discuss the implementation of price-listing medicines before the proposal is tabled in Parliament.

Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the prices of medicines, which varied in different hospitals and places, needed to be standardised in order for them to be disclosed.

“We want patients to have access to medicines at reasonable cost and it should be standardised,” he said.

Dr Subramaniam was commenting on the front page report on Sunday Star that the Government was proposing to compel pharmaceutical companies to declare the prices of medicines to the Health Ministry.

The move is still at an early stage, but is in line with the Ministry’s plan to compel medicine price disclosure under a proposed amendment to the Sale of Drugs Act.

Noting that the meeting would be held soon, Dr Subramaniam said the Ministry’s concern was to en­­sure affordable medicines for Malay­­sians.

“Although it is a suggestion, we are going to sit down, address the issue and work out a mechanism to do this. The Ministry, the Agency and Industry players will discuss the implications of the implementation to make sure it is done in a way that is acceptable. At the end of the day, it is very important that those who will benefit from this are the patients,” he added.

Asked when the proposal would be brought to Parliament, Dr Subramaniam said this would happen only when all those concerned reached a common understanding.
/theSTAR 19-06-2017

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Changes to Professional Medical Practices: July 2017



Doctors must have indemnity insurance and attend continuing education courses if they wish to renew their Annual Practising Certificate (APC) from now on.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the change from automatically renewing APCs was to ensure patients’ safety, and to see that doctors continually update their knowledge and skills.
He said ample time would be given to comply with the conditions to be imposed on all renewals from Jan 1, 2019.

According to the ministry yesterday, 41,101 APCs have been issued in total, of which 27,417 are in the public sector and 13,684 in the private sector.

Asked if making professional indemnity coverage mandatory would raise the cost of medical care, Dr Subramaniam said it was a negligible cost for doctors as many already have such insurance, especially specialists in hospitals, while doctors in the public sector were already covered by the Government.

“A lot of litigation has been coming lately. The sum involved is phenomenally huge in such lawsuits,” Dr Subramaniam said, adding that it was in the doctor’s best interest to be covered.

These are among several changes made to the Medical (Amendment) Act 2012 and Medical Regulations 2017, which will come into force today, 1st July 2017.

Under the new rules, specialists would also have to register with the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) to be recognised as such, in 20 fields of medicine including paediatrics, neurosurgery and psychiatry.

Specialists have until December to register, though those already recognised by the MMC would automatically be placed in the National Specialist Register.

Dr Subramaniam said the MMC would work closely with the Academy of Medicine and specialists fraternity in establishing standards, while the Medical Regulations 2017 provides for the setting up of a Medical Education Committee which will identify the institutions and qualifications to be recognised.

The third change was to corporatise the MMC, giving it more autonomy in managing its secretariat and funding.

Dr Subramaniam said the MMC’s daily activities would be managed by a chief executive officer, supported by a secretariat that would be able to hire its own employees and generate funding from services rendered to the medical community, in addition to receiving government funds.

MMC secretary Datuk Dr Azmi Shapie told The Star that the secretariat would now be made up of 17 elected members, nine appointed members from public and private medical schools, and three representatives each from private and public centres, all led by its president, the Health Director General.

The change to a corporate entity would also amend certain job titles, with Dr Azmi’s position now becoming CEO.

Asked how many specialists were not registered, he said most already were, with 9,898 listed on the National Specialist Register. “It’s very important to register. Patients will be able to check online that you’re legitimate. This would also ensure only those with recognised training can practise as specialists,” he said, adding that registration costs RM1,500 and was valid for five years, with renewal for a similar period costing the same.

Dr Azmi also added that doctors who were not recognised and not registered as spe­cialists would be considered general practitioners.

/theSTAR 01-07-2017

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