27 Sep 2010

CARE FOR THE SICK IS STILL THE MAIN AIM

THE STAR SAYS - SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 26, 2010

FOR the first time in at least a generation, private healthcare providers in this country may advertise their services. That comes from the recent liberalisation of provisions under the Medicines (Advertisement and Sales) Act 1965.

However, this is not a blank cheque for commercialising and marketing medical care. Even mercenary businesspersons in the guise of healthcare professionals are still bound by certain limitations.

The restrictions are reasonable and necessary: no comparisons with the services of others in the advertising language, and no self-promotion by way of superlatives. Certain standards are needed to prevent the noble healthcare profession from falling into the pit of depraved profiteering.

The Health Ministry has warned that it would act against medical practitioners who flout the law. The ministry needs to be diligent and consistent in monitoring the public pronouncements and conduct of healthcare providers, as well as be responsive to public complaints about errant practitioners.

Selling healthcare services is supposed to be different from selling soap or shoes. The health and lives of patients are at stake, for which doctors are sworn to care under their universal Hippocratic Oath.

This oath spells out a basic code of ethics in the profession. It is therefore only proper that standards of competence, conscientiousness and decorum be observed as a matter of course.

It is sometimes thought that allowing healthcare providers to advertise would let them serve foreign patients visiting this country as well. However, “medical tourism” has been a feature here for years even without healthcare advertisements.

What such advertising can achieve is to extend the reach of available services to prospective patients abroad. This effectively expands the “market” for medical tourism, but the risk of lowering standards of care must be averted.

Meanwhile, medical tourism is becoming big business, and some feel that Malay­sia must capitalise on this growth industry.

But the primary objective of healthcare providers is still to provide care for the health of the sick. And the best way to be competitive is to offer the finest care at the most affordable prices.

We support ads for healthcare and consumers can now choose and know where and what to look for.

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