Hello. A busy day (when is it never busy?). A public health expert visited my office today to discuss and explain problems facing Malaysian health service. I learnt a few new things today, which always pleases me to no end.
For instance, the common held perception that migrant workers are clogging up our public hospitals is not exactly true. It is only true in Hospital KL since there is a high density of migrant tenants living in the vicinity. The problem according to the expert is not the poor health of the migrant workers per se, but the very poor health and safety standards of employers that result in frequent industrial accidents, hence these workers end up clogging HKL. This to me is a very interesting observation and brings home the idea to consider more carefully our health policies.
The expert also went on to explain in detail, policies in Australia on elderly care and Nordic policies on child development care. Both areas are extremely important and yet overlooked by the Ministry of Health. We intend to write policy papers on these two subjects.
However my office is overworked at the moment and we have only one intern left (and she is finishing her paper). The next batch of interns will come in at the end of this month but then June is our extremely busy Welfare Month, so I will probably assign the interns to do these healthcare policies later in July.
In the meantime, Tania is typing away putting the finishing touches to our policy paper on political reforms.
We will publish it tomorrow (hopefully)?
Tania says: boleh!
