University Malaya Medical Centre's (UMMC) budget was slashed by RM20.27 million as part of Putrajaya's rationalisation exercise, said Education Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.

He said the cuts were due to rationalisation of the Finance Ministry's management allocation of RM5.5 billion, which also saw various ministries, including the Education Ministry, experiencing budget cuts.

"In this matter, the management allocation for UMMC has been restructured and has reduced by RM20.27 million and not RM120 million as alleged.

"The amount took into account UMMC's financial capabilities based on its total savings, liquid and non-liquidated assets," he told Alice Lau Kiong Yieng (DAP - Lanang).

Muhyiddin, who is also deputy prime minister, said this year the ministry gave the teaching hospital an additional allocation of RM35 million, and this amount was more than the budget cut.

He said the total development expenditure for UMMC this year was RM492 million and out of the total, RM407 million was contribution from the government and the balance of RM85 million was supported by internal sources as well as the balance from its 2014 reserves.

The Malaysian Insider reported that a budget cut of RM120 million for UMMC this year caused concern among several doctors over the hospital's ability to give adequate treatment to patients.

They worry that patient care will be compromised after the teaching hospital's budget for 2015 was reduced to RM387 million against an expenditure of RM510 million last year.

And as a teaching hospital, the cut would also affect the quality of education provided to medical students.

Universiti Malaya's Dean of Medicine, Professor Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, said the hospital was verbally informed of the budget cut earlier this year by the Education Ministry which the hospital falls under as it is a teaching hospital.

She said the budget cut was expected to put a further strain on UMMC's ability to provide patient care given that it was expecting a rise in the number of patients switching over from private hospitals following the implementation of the goods and services tax (GST) at 6%.

In addition, UMMC would be paying an estimated RM4 million in GST every month to suppliers.

Already operating under tight constraints, this is expected to exacerbate the chronic funding problem the hospital is facing.

Source: The Malaysian Insider