KUALA LUMPUR: Thirty per cent of Malaysians are overweight while another 30 per cent are obese.
CONCERNED: Liow meeting one of the patients waiting for treatment at Temenggong Seri Maharaja Hospital. — Bernama photo
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the problem cut across all ages, while more and more children had become overweight of late, which was worrying.
“We should look at our health as a very important factor as poor health could expose us to all kinds of diseases as a result of poor diet and an unhealthy lifestyle.”
“This is a worrying phenomenon as it is directly related to increased risk to diseases such as diabetes, heart problems, kidney failure, high blood pressure and cancer,” he said after opening the Hospitals Visitor Board Conference 2010, here, yesterday.
In this regard, Liow urged the people to eat balanced meals, besides keeping a healthy lifestyle by engaging in physical activities including exercise, jogging and sports.
On the conference, he said his ministry would provide financial allocation of RM10,000 to the Visitors’ Board of each of the 112 hospitals in the country next year.
“This allocation will continue to be channelled to the respective hospital’s Visitors Board account to carry out programmes and activities that could help improve the hospital’s service quality and for the benefit of patients.”
He said the star rating system for all the visitors’ boards of the main hospitals in the states would be extended to the districts from next year.
As for the evaluation made in 2009 on 18 state hospitals, he said no visitors board managed to get five-star rating, and only five hospitals had four-star rating.
On another matter, Liow refuted the claim by former transport minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat that he was now prevented from attending any function organised by the Health Ministry.
“No such thing, it has never crossed my mind. He (Ong) must be having a lot of imagination. I don’t know where he got the information,” he said.
Yesterday, Ong who is the Member of Parliament for Pandan, said he was sidelined and not invited to attend the visit recently by the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin and Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Nur Zahirah to Ampang Hospital, which is located in his constituency. — Bernama