Press Releases

Media Statement – Health Budget 2017 Part 2

Media Statement by Dr Lim Chee Han, Senior Researcher at the Penang Institute on the 3rd of November, 2016.

Reduced development allocations expected to negatively impact Health Ministry’s public healthcare delivery services.

The 2017 budget set a new low for development expenditure within the Ministry of Health (MOH), with a budget reduction of 16.4%, from RM 1.6 billion in the previous year to RM1.34 billion in 2017.

Broadly speaking, MOH’s budget has increased on a year-on-year basis (except for 2016), peaking at RM24.8 billion for 2017 (Figure 1). However, the allocations set aside for development expenditure have gone the opposite way.

In 2010, development expenditure totalled RM3.58 billion or 24.3% of total expenditure. This amount has steadily declined over the years, reaching an all-time low of RM 1.34 billion, or a mere 5.4% share of the overall health budget for 2017 (Figure 2).

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