Government urges general practitioners to participate in health screening programme

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Datuk Seri Dr S Subramaniam

KUALA LUMPUR: The government yesterday invited all private general practitioners to participate as panel doctors in the Social Security Organisation (Socso) Health Screening Programme (HSP) to help improve the quality of health of workers.

Human Resources Minister Datuk Seri Dr S Subramaniam said the HSP, to be launched next month, was a nationwide programme for all Malaysian workers aged 40 years and above who were actively working to undergo screening for non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, stroke and cancer.

“The HSP was announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in the 2013 budget. The main objectives are to identify workers with a high risk of getting non-communicable diseases for early health management and to prevent health complications and disabilities.

“General practitioners play a major role in the HSP as they are the forerunners in operationalising this virtuous effort as well as the key primary care providers for patients who are at risk of chronic diseases,” he said in a statement.

Currently, over 500 clinics had registered as the HSP panel clinics, and Socso had allocated RM200 million for the programme this year, he said.

“However, Socso aims to have more general practitioners to participate as the HSP panel as over 1.9 million workers nationwide qualify for the health screening under this programme in 2013,” said Subramaniam.

He said workers would be able to redeem their health screening through vouchers which had been distributed via employers from last month.

Those interested could register through the HSP portal at http://www.perkeso.gov.my/sehat, he said. — Bernama