Kota Kinabalu: The Federal Government has allocated RM1.56 billion through the 13th Malaysia Plan (13MP) planning and negotiations under the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63) for 53 healthcare development projects throughout Sabah.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad said the allocation covered 32 physical projects involving the construction of hospitals and clinics, as well as 21 non-physical projects focusing specifically on ICT digitalisation and the procurement of the latest medical equipment.
He said the projects included the Sabah Heart Centre, Sapulut Nabawan Health Clinic and the new block at Tawau Hospital.
“The biggest challenge facing healthcare services in Sabah is not merely the figures on paper, but geography and logistics,” he said when delivering a keynote address at the Health Minister’s Talk Session titled “Healthcare Services in Sabah: Current Realities, Challenges and Hopes for the Future”, organised by the National Institute of Public Administration (Intan) Sabah Campus, at Wisma Wanita, here, Friday.
Dr Dzulkefly said from 2023 to 2025, through the Bitara Madani initiative, the Ministry of Health (MoH) had completed the reconstruction and upgrading of 132 dilapidated clinics in Sabah with an allocation of RM75.5 million.
He said old and unsafe wooden buildings had been transformed into modern and safe concrete facilities, including the Kemabong Health Clinic, Sook Health Clinic and Takuli Village Clinic.
“For 2026, we are planning to implement the remaining 46 dilapidated clinics in phases,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Government has set a projected five per cent annual increase in Sabah’s healthcare allocation, with the State’s healthcare allocation expected to reach RM4 billion by 2030.
Dr Dzulkefly said MoH had also approved immediate allocations totalling RM4.3 million following recent working visits to district hospitals in Sabah.
The allocation comprised RM988,000 for Tambunan Hospital, RM1.279 million for Ranau Hospital together with four new ambulances and RM2.01 million to upgrade the Outpatient Unit at Kota Belud Hospital.
To overcome geographical challenges in rural areas, he said MoH would also launch a pilot project for drone delivery of medicines in Tawau in the fourth quarter of 2026, aimed at delivering critical medicines to remote areas more quickly.
He said efforts to improve service efficiency were also being carried out through healthcare digitalisation. He said 81 per cent of patients were now screened and treated within less than an hour, while 63 per cent experienced waiting times of less than 30 minutes.
In Sabah, the Cloud-Based Clinic Management System (CCMS) was being expanded to 36 health clinics, while all 44 primary dental clinics in the State were now fully using digital dental records through the Dental Information System.
He said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim had recently announced a RM1 billion allocation to drive the comprehensive implementation of Electronic Medical Records (EMR), involving 150 hospitals and 2,000 MoH health clinics.
The implementation, he said, was expected to shorten waiting times, improve the patient experience, reduce congestion at healthcare facilities, improve working conditions and increase the productivity of healthcare personnel.
Dr Dzulkefly said more than 29 million appointments covering 18 types of services had been managed through the MySejahtera application.
“The efficiency of this system has restored productive time for the public estimated at almost RM136 million over three years, while the digital prescription initiative has saved more than RM7 million in government paper printing costs,” he said.
He said MoH’s target was for the entire national healthcare ecosystem, including village clinics, health clinics, district hospitals and the private sector, to be fully digitalised by 2030 in order to realise its “One Individual, One Record” vision.
Through collaboration with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), he said the original target for primary digital integration had also been brought forward from 2045 to the first quarter of 2027.
In Sabah, e-Health services were also being integrated with the National Information Dissemination Centre (Nadi) ecosystem under MCMC to enable people in rural and island areas to obtain virtual consultations, or telehealth services, without having to travel long distances.
On human resources, Dr Dzulkefly said Sabah was currently supported by 2,546 doctors, 549 specialists and 10,164 nurses, but the State’s staffing fill rate stood at only 88.51 per cent, leaving 3,557 vacancies.
He said the issue was made more challenging by Sabah often being treated as a “training ground” or temporary training destination before personnel applied for transfers out of the State.
“In 2025, only 12 medical specialists reported for duty in Sabah, while 57 specialists transferred out.
“For pharmacy officers, 174 came in, but 115 applied to leave the State in the same year,” he said.
He said the cycle of training, serving and subsequently losing experienced officers was undermining the continuity of healthcare services in the State.
In response, the MoH-Public Service Department (JPA) Staffing Management Task Force was established in April 2026, followed by the MoH-Higher Education Ministry (KPT) Joint Committee in June 2026 to comprehensively map the supply and demand for the medical workforce.
Dr Dzulkefly said under the Public Service Remuneration System (SSPA), civil servants’ salaries, including the starting salary for Grade U5 nurses, had been increased by 15 per cent from January 2026.
The On-Call Duty Allowance (Etap) was also increased by up to 43 per cent, the first review in 14 years, while the locum allowance was standardised at RM80 per hour and an elective surgery allowance outside normal working hours was introduced.
Full relocation allowance claims for officers whose status changed from contract to permanent had also been officially approved.
At the same time, the Critical Service Incentive Payment, Post-Basic Incentive, Rural Incentive and special incentives for treating psychiatric, TB and leprosy patients were retained in full.
Dr Dzulkefly said 18,755 medical, pharmacy and dental officers had been appointed to permanent positions since 2023, while 4,328 nurses were appointed permanently between 2023 and 2025, with another 935 appointed this year.
For 2026 alone, he said, the initial target of absorbing 4,500 doctors had been exceeded, with 4,691 permanent appointment offers issued, while the inherited contract doctor system would be phased out completely by 2028.
MoH was also retaining the 42-hour working week for shift workers to safeguard the welfare of 82,637 frontline personnel, while the Mutual Transfer System (P3S) for nurses was being expanded to other service schemes from 2026.
In efforts to strengthen specialist capacity, sponsorship for the Parallel Pathway had been increased 11-fold to 600 slots a year covering 14 specialist fields, compared with 52 slots in 2022.
This was supported by the Pre-Gazettement Incentive Payment (BIPPW) of between RM1,900 and RM3,100 a month during the Supervised Working Experience (SWE).
For Sabah specifically, the e-Placement 2.0 algorithm now requires priority to be given to the placement of permanent officers in rural areas.
Through MA63, 607 new positions, including specialist posts, had been created specifically for Sabah. Meanwhile, through JPA staffing autonomy, Sabah-born graduates of the Malaysian Health Ministry Training Institute (ILKKM) can now be absorbed directly into permanent positions as soon as they graduate and register, without having to wait for bureaucratic processes.
On healthcare financing, Dr Dzulkefly said medical claims inflation in the private sector had risen to 15 per cent, exceeding the Asia-Pacific and global averages.
He said uncontrolled charges for supplies and services by private hospitals accounted for more than 70 per cent of bill components.
Rising costs and uncontrolled premium increases had also resulted in more than 340,000 insurance policyholders reportedly being forced to surrender their policies.
“Where will these hundreds of thousands of people go when they fall ill? They will return to relying entirely on public facilities, thereby overwhelming the capacity of our one per cent healthcare heroes,” he said.
As a result, MoH was adopting a whole-of-nation approach with the Finance Ministry and Bank Negara Malaysia through the Reset framework.
Dr Dzulkefly said MoH would launch the MediAsas initiative, an affordable medical insurance or takaful plan specifically for the M40 group, which had been priced out of the market.
To control costs in the private sector, MoH was also moving towards a Diagnosis Related Groups (DRG) payment system, with treatment costs to be driven by value and effectiveness under Value-Based Healthcare, rather than simply by the number of tests or medicines used.
Dr Dzulkefly said the success of the healthcare system could not depend solely on MoH, as the health of the people was a shared responsibility across the Government and relevant sectors.
He said district officers and Public Works Department (JKR) engineers, for example, played a role in ensuring safe roads so patients could reach emergency zones promptly, while supply agencies needed to ensure that clean water utilities were managed transparently to prevent waterborne diseases.
MCMC, he said, also needed to ensure internet connectivity was upgraded so that cloud-based digital systems such as CCMS could be accessed by healthcare personnel at rural village clinics.
“One per cent of MoH personnel cannot continue to shoulder the health and lives of 99 per cent of the people without the support of everyone in this hall.
“The true strength of a healthcare system is not measured by how it serves the strongest, but by how it safeguards the weakest and most vulnerable,” he said.
