Kota Kinabalu: Parti Warisan Health Bureau Chief Dr Istefan Koh said the worsening shortage of doctors in Sabah is not a routine healthcare management problem but a structural failure by the Federal Government to uphold the State’s constitutional rights.
“The people of Sabah can no longer accept excuses. They are facing overwhelmed hospitals, a critical shortage of doctors and a healthcare system under severe strain. And to this day, no real and decisive solution has been taken,” he said in a statement.
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He said the critical shortages of medical personnel, overcrowded government hospitals and deteriorating facilities reflected a widening gap in healthcare delivery between Sabah and other states in Malaysia.
“Since healthcare falls entirely under the Federal List of the Federal Constitution, that full responsibility for hospitals, clinics, doctors and the national healthcare system rests with Putrajaya, making any failure in Sabah a direct federal failure, not a minor administrative matter,” he said.
He also raised questions over Article 95B of the Federal Constitution, specifically the Ninth Schedule List IIIA, which once granted Sabah authority over medicine and health under a special concurrent provision before it lapsed in 1970.
That authority, he said, has never been restored, formally reviewed, nor replaced with any equivalent mechanism.
“This raises a serious question: was Sabah deliberately stripped of healthcare autonomy without any proper reassessment of the long-term consequences?” Dr Istefan said.
He further pointed to the unresolved implementation of Sabah’s financial entitlement under Article 112C of the Federal Constitution which provides for 40 per cent of net Federal revenue collected from the State as a compounding factor directly reflected in the healthcare system’s chronic underfunding.
Dr Istefan called on the Federal Government to demonstrate political will in reconsidering the existing constitutional framework, including the possibility of enacting special legislation under Article 95D to grant Sabah meaningful authority over healthcare financing and administration.
While acknowledging that the State Government had issued a statement on the doctor shortage, he questioned whether genuinely proactive follow-up measures would follow or whether the announcement would amount to little more than an acknowledgement of the problem.
“The lack of clarity, delayed action and absence of structural reform only reinforce one reality, the current system has failed to protect Sabah fairly,” he said.
