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Review
The Malaysian health care system: Ecology, plans, and reforms
  1. Andrea Sebastian1,2,
  2. Mohamed Ali Alzain1,2,5,
  3. Collins Otieno Asweto1,3,
  4. Gehendra Mahara1,2,
  5. Xiuhua Guo1,2,
  6. Manshu Song1,2,
  7. Youxin Wang1,2 and
  8. Wei Wang1,2,4
  1. 1.School of Public Health, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China
  2. 2.Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of Clinical Epidemiology, Beijing, China
  3. 3.Beijing Municipal Key Laboratory of Environmental Toxicology, Beijing, China
  4. 4.School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA, Australia
  5. 5.Community Medicine Department, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Dongola, Sudan
  1. Corresponding authors: Wei Wang, MD, PhD, FFPH, School of Medical and Health Sciences, Edith Cowan University, Perth, WA 6027, Australia, E-mail: wei.wang{at}ecu.edu.au, Youxin Wang, PhD, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100069, China, E-mail: sdwangyouxin{at}163.com

Abstract

Malaysia is on its way to achieving developed nation status in the next 4 years. Currently, Malaysia is on track for three Millennium Development Goals (MDG1, MDG4, and MDG7). The maternal mortality rate, infant mortality rate, and mortality rate of children younger than 5 years improved from 25.6% (2012) to 6.6% (2013), and 7.7% (2012) per 100,000 live births, respectively whereas immunization coverage for infants increased to an average of 90%. As of 2013 the ratio of physicians to patients improved to 1:633 while the ratio of health facilities to the population was 1:10,272. The current government administration has proposed a reform in the form of the 10th Malaysian Plan coining the term “One Care for One Malaysia” as the newly improved and reorganized health care plan, where efficiency, effectiveness, and equity are the main focus. This review illustrates Malaysia’s transition from pre-independence to the current state, and its health and socioeconomic achievement as a country. It aims to contribute knowledge through identifying the plans and reforms by the Malaysian government while highlighting the challenges faced as a nation.

  • Health care
  • health care reform
  • One Care
  • Malaysia

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.15212/FMCH.2016.0101

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