The Academy of Medicine of Malaysia (AMM) welcomes the government's decision to engage with private sector healthcare providers to ease the burden on public hospitals and healthcare workers (HCW). 

On behalf of over 3,000 medical specialists in Malaysia from the public, private, and academic sectors represented by AMM, we are prepared to serve and assist the Ministry of Health (MOH) with its COVID-19 management plan irrespective of our place of duty.

We acknowledge that there are many facets that need attention to streamline the public and private healthcare systems effectively and efficiently. This includes but is not limited to patient coverage, distribution of hospital beds and personal protective equipment, and fair compensation for HCWs.

We note that there is some concern regarding private hospitals' capacity to manage COVID-19 patients given the limited human resource infrastructure, ICU set-up and specialists in the private sector, who themselves may belong to high-risk groups.

We trust that all these matters will be accounted for and hope to see creative solutions such as secondments of medical staff to private hospitals and cross-referrals between hospitals.

Coordinating the two healthcare systems is no mean feat, but we are confident in MOH's ability in collaboration with the Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia (APHM) and all relevant stakeholders, to find solutions that will best suit all parties.

This is also a timely collaboration in light of the increase in COVID-19 infections among HCWs.

While we understand that only a third of the infections are nosocomial, i.e. originating in the hospital, we are deeply concerned for our colleagues on the frontline.

The third wave has almost overwhelmed the health system, thus stretching thin the surveillance and protective measures in place. That said, these are risks which we HCWs recognized when we answered the call of duty.

AMM sees great potential in private-public partnerships helping to mitigate these risks for our frontline HCWs in the future.

We are prepared to contribute in any way that can support MOH, namely in educating and engaging with specialists.

For example, the College of Radiology, AMM will be conducting a webinar on Saturday (January 23) to prepare radiology departments in various hospitals for imaging and managing COVID-19 patients.

The webinar will cover infrastructure preparation, consent and scanning procedures in COVID-19 patients, among other topics, focusing on department safety procedures within red-zone areas.

Meanwhile, the College of Anesthesiologists, AMM, the Malaysian Society of Anesthesiologists and Malaysian Society of Intensive Care have conducted virtual workshops on COVID-19 protocols for patients in critical care.

We can replicate and adapt similar virtual training for other departments and specialties to support MOH with capacity building in hospitals nationwide.

If we collectively mobilize all public and private healthcare resources, we will have sufficient surge capacity to keep the pandemic under control until we achieve herd immunity through widespread vaccination.

We hope that this is only the first step in a long-term process of better integrating our health system for the benefit of all Malaysians.

(Embracing 11 Colleges and 15 Chapters, the Academy of Medicine of Malaysia is a registered body representing medical specialists in the country.)