Malaysia Health Care Case Study

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Healthcare in Malaysia is divided into two different sectors, namely the public and private sectors. Private healthcare provides health services that are mainly concentrated in urbanized areas of the country. It ranges from privately funded hospitals to clinics and nursing homes. Private healthcare providers are governed by the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998. The Malaysian healthcare system was inherited from the British upon independence in 1957. From the late 1950s, a three-tier primary health care model was developed for the public sector that consisted of a health center, four sub-centers and four midwife clinics for each sub-center. In 1970, the sub-center tier was abolished and midwife posts were switched with community …show more content…

It is a major attraction in the medical tourism field with 671,727 medical tourists in 2012, contributing over RM600mil to the country’s GDP. It is generally regarded as a more upmarket and more readily available provider of medical services in the country. Over 30,000 doctors are attached to the private sector, accounting for 34 per cent of doctors in Malaysia. It is proven that income is one of the factors affecting the demand of private healthcare in Malaysia. An increase on income on household consumption of medical care consists of several consequences. Firstly, only a minor impact on whether or not the household seeks medical care or on the total quantity of outpatient care consumed by the household were indicated. Since the effect of an increase in household income implies both positive and negative price effects on medical demand, the estimated coefficient of the income variable is not indicative of the narrow income effect of the theoretical …show more content…

Patients’ demand for private healthcare because it has more alternatives compared to public healthcare. For instance, private healthcare provides varieties of doctors for consultation and also the environment is more prestigious. Demand of private healthcare may be influenced by past experience too as some may already been consulted by the same private clinics since birth or they were satisfied by previous visits. It is a logical that patients’ seek the best quality of healthcare services; ergo, they will prefer private healthcare compared to public healthcare Due to long waiting times, high dissatisfaction of patients, poor communication and productivity and low quality services provided by public healthcare causes patients to choose private healthcare instead.(2) Based on the issues above, the demand for private healthcare increased. Evidence shows that, patients carefully select healthcare services first before concerning more about their own health. In summary, patients most probably prefer to seek for private healthcare rather than public healthcare and by doing so, affect the demand of private

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