Deputy Health Minister's personal opinion on Ismail Merican's statement

I have read with interest comments by my good friend Tan Sri Ismail Merican. We have similar background, we both are from Penang, and we went to the same university, MU. Of course he is my senior. Tan Sri had a very illustrious carrier. Imagine, as far I can remember he is the only one who was appointed a DG of Health Ministry after his retirement.

I agree with him totally on the issue of vaccination. We are going backwards in efforts to manage communicable diseases. We spend more than RM 100 m each year to provide immunisation to all of our children. Imagine, the ones that reject immunisation for their children are those educated people, some even from universities. The rejection is on the uptrend, They even manage to convince many others to follow them. Many reasons are given, side effects, religious as well.

I have been saying many times and even replied in Parliament that a vaccine that the Ministry of Health is using has no porcine DNA. This is the problem when we have so many Dr Google among us. They read the internet and that's it, they follow whatever is written there. They make their own conclusion without expert opinion from our health specialists. One simple logic. The vaccines have undergone so much clinical trials by experts. They will never be used in this country if they are proven unsafe.

These people are being selfish in a way. When they were young they received the immunisation. Their parents never rejected it. That is why I presume they remain healthy and able to have their own children. When their turn comes they choose to deny their children the protection from immunisation. This is unthinkable. They are denying the rights of their children to a healthy life free from communicable diseases. What is even worse they are also putting the general population at risk due to lack of herd immunity.

I agree we have to do more to convince this so called educated group of people to understand the danger faced by their children and the general public. So far the fatwa on the use of the vaccines is HARUS. We are in the process of engaging JAKIM, Women's ministry and other relevant agencies on the way forward. One thing that can be done immediately is to have JAKIM to write a khutbah for Friday prayers.

On the other issue, about women doctors attending to O & G cases, this is not new. Every now and then this issue will be raised by certain groups. These are the idealists. They want women to attend to women. This subject was posed to me by a reporter when I visited the maternity wad in Hospital Balik Pulau. Somehow, it became big news. The reporter wrote what she thought was true. Anyway let me tell you, in my 25 years in politics, when politicians including yours truly try to make corrections on any press report, it will either not get printed or it will appear in very small prints. I chose not to. Of course I know very well that it will attract a lot of debate in the media.

Let us examine the current situation in government hospitals. There are 172 female and 134 male O & G specialists in the whole country as of December 2015. Last yr alone 15 of them left govt service for better pasture.

We do increase the number of Masters scholarships to 1000 each year since last year. The uptake is good so far but at the same time many will leave us. This means that it will take sometime for the country to achieve adequate no of female O & G specialists in govt service. When that happens our young mothers will have the luxury to chose their preferred female specialist. Of course there will also be many male specialists working with their female counter part. In times of emergency, you cannot choose Tan Sri Ismail Merican, whoever is available will have to attend to the case.

The way the report was written gave the impression that Deputy Health Minister has abandoned his oath to the medical profession. I am still a doctor. Certainly we cannot make it mandatory that only female doctors will treat female patients. It may apply to elective cases but not during emergency.

Hope Tan Sri is clear by now.