Chee Khoon Chan

(1) contextualising health insurance premium increases (2) proposals for reforms to healthcare financing in Malaysia

rising healthcare insurance costs in the Malaysian health services ecosystem

Interrogating the evidence base for proposed SHI for Malaysia; argues for an expanded tax-funded publicly provided healthcare system which has been chronically under-funded

It's time for a No Nukes Peoples’ Network to hold governments to account for painting bull’s eyes on the backs of their citizens

Just as US residents within 50km of an ICBM base might feel nervous as high priority targets in a nuclear exchange, an Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine docking at Busan (or Singapore’s Changi Naval Base, or a Filipino naval base) is in effect a mobile launch platform for 200+ independently targetable nuclear warheads (475-kiloton hydrogen bom...

a Malaysian case study to examine global influences and local contingencies in the neoliberal transformation and financialization of a healthcare system

The recent revelations of Daniel Ellsberg, from his nuclear war planning years during the administrations of Eisenhower and Kennedy, and the sidelining of prudent voices like US Ambassador Chas Freeman, have not eased anxieties over gathering storm clouds in the Asia-Pacific region. In the 1980s, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) opposed t...

Letter to the Editor (Malay Mail, September 1, 2021)

Citizens' commentary on selection and procurement of Covid-19 vaccines in Malaysia

Commentary on early chronology of Wuhan's Covid-19 outbreak & investigation

Discusses contemporary challenges to UHC in the Malaysian context

Governance challenges for a state juggling multiple hats as healthcare provider, regulator, and entrepreneur-investor

Malaysia offers an unusual case study where government agencies, at both federal and state (provincial) levels, have acquired controlling stakes in major for-profit healthcare enterprises. The Johor state government for instance, through its corporate arm the Johor Corporation, spawned a large diversified healthcare conglomerate (Kumpulan Perubatan...

In the Southeast Asian region, the migration landscape is overwhelmingly characterized by temporary labor migration, which links major labor-exporting countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar) with migrant destination countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Brunei. In Malaysia, refugees and asylum seekers currently total 161,140 (Aug...

Migrants, Rights, and Health Security in Malaysia: Fatalities among Nepali migrant workers (2015)

In the Southeast Asian region, the migration landscape is overwhelmingly characterized by temporary labor migration, which links major labor-exporting countries (Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar) with high-volume destination countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Brunei. In Malaysia, refugees and asylum-seekers currently total about 15...

Book Review (forthcoming, J M’sian Branch Royal Asiatic Soc, December 2018) Meghann Ormond & Lim Chee Han (2018) The Private Healthcare Sector in Johor: Trends and Prospects Singapore: ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute

Migrants and refugees face challenges accessing both healthcare and good social determinants of health in Malaysia. Participants at the “Migrant and Refugee Health in Malaysia workshop, Kuala Lumpur, 9-10 November 2017” scoped these challenges within the regional ASEAN context, identifying gaps in knowledge and practical steps forward to improve th...

The goal of ensuring geographic equity of health care can be achieved if the geographic distribution of health care services is according to the health needs. This study aims to examine whether acute Ministry of Health hospital beds are distributed according to population health needs in various states within Peninsular Malaysia. The health needs o...

Malaysia offers an unusual case study where government agencies, at both federal and state (provincial) levels, have acquired controlling stakes in major for-profit healthcare enterprises. The Johor state government for instance, through its corporate arm the Johor Corporation, spawned a large diversified healthcare conglomerate (Kumpulan Perubatan...

Following on the identification of medical tourism as a growth sector by the Malaysian government in 1998, over the last 15 years significant governmental and private-sector investment has been channelled into its development. This is unfolding within the broader context of social services being devolved to for-profit enterprises and ‘market-capabl...

In early 2007, the Indonesian government made a controversial decision to withhold its H5N1 avian flu virus samples from World Health Organisation Collaborating Centres pending a new global mechanism for virus sharing that had better terms for developing countries. In doing so, it helped to reframe the discourse on international health cooperation...

Dr MK Rajakumar fought the good fight on many fronts. In the 1970s, with domestic left-wing politics on the ebb, Dr Rajakumar shifted his energies to another arena of human endeavor he was passionate about, health and medical care for the needful. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Dr Rajakumar worked tirelessly to advance primary care medicine and to...

This paper begins with a theoretical perspective on privatisation which links it with systemic tendencies towards over-accumulation in the global capitalist economy. To analyse health system dynamics, the health system is conceptualised as an articulation of component sub-systems (provision, financing, treatment accessories, support services, resea...

The Federal Constitution of Malaysia decrees that with the notable exceptions of land matters and matters pertaining to the Islamic religion, all other areas which are subject to governmental jurisdiction fall under the federal purview. Notwithstanding this, the Johor state government operates through its corporate arm, the Johor Corporation, a div...

In parallel with the neo-liberal retrenchment of the welfarist state, an increasing emphasis on the responsibility of individuals in managing their own affairs and their well-being has been evident. In the health arena for instance, this was a major theme permeating the UK government's White Paper Choosing Health: Making Healthy Choices Easier (200...

Donor Leverage and Equitable Access to Essential Medicines CHAN Chee Khoon Universiti Sains Malaysia In early 2007, the Indonesian government decided to withhold its bird flu virus samples from WHO’s collaborating centers pending a new global mechanism for virus sharing that had better terms for developing countries. In breaking with the existi...

On June 27, 2001, the World Health Organization conducted hearings in Geneva for a Special Report on Genomics & Health. Initially intended as a document to address the ethical, legal, and social implications of the gathering genomics resolution (ELSI), the terms of reference of the report were significantly modified to give primary emphasis to a sc...

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients have elevated IgG and IgA antibody titers against the Epstein-Barr viral capsid antigen (VCA) and the diffuse component of the early antigen complex (EA-D) at diagnosis. Several studies have implied that the presence of anti-VCA-IgA can be used as a screening marker for early NPC. To evaluate this further, we...

The recent developments in Singapore are a reminder that eugenic doctrines, in their less extreme formulations, retain much of their plausibility for large sectors of public opinion. Indeed, the appeal seems not to be confined to politically conservative societies, but is apparent even in the People's Republic of China, where there have been recent...

The social development, emotional adaptation, and functioning of mothers of failure-to-thrive children, and of a group of matched controls were studied. Results show that maternal behavior of the mothers of the failure-to-thrive group, while showing no overt psychopathology, did differ substantially from that of the control group.