Following the Pro-Tem Medical Supplies Committee Meeting on 28th September, the committee held the second meeting recently on 16th November 2010 at Wisma FMM to discuss further matters that were not being able to bring up during the meeting on September 2010.
The meeting started off with welcoming message from Encik Salleh Tahir, Head of Company for Healthtronics (M) Sdn Bhd. Soon after his message, Ms. Hasliana, as the FMM Secretariat briefed the attended parties on the agenda of the meeting as well as minutes of previous meeting after confirming the attendance.
Objective of the meeting: To be the voice for local medical players.
The meeting continued with the discussion on the matters arising as follows:
a. FMM MSIG Membership– Based on the previous meeting on the explanation for membership fees to run the group, FMM Secretariat informed the committee that the basic fees are RM 12, 000 per year which commences on the July to following year June.
b. Formalize FMM MSIG as Full Committee and the Election of EXCO and Working Committee– Due to the low attendance of the committee compared to previous meeting, the committee has no choice to further postpone the election on the member of the committee as Full Committee in order to be fair to those who were absent during the meeting.
c. Other matters:
1. Feedback on Medical Devices Registration– After reading through the draft on Medical Devices Regulation from Minister of Health Department, the chairman of the committee, Encik Salleh Tahir pointed out that it is important for each of the members and medical industry players to voice out their comments regarding the Medical Devices Regulation which was not yet endorsed by the Parliament. The reason behind was due to the objective of establishing the committee whereby the group will be the voice for all the medical industry players in Malaysia. Besides, it is also due to the protection for local medical manufacturers despite the competition from multinational companies (MNC).
As pointed out by Dr. Hyzan from OSA Technology Sdn. Bhd., the terminologies founded in the draft of Medical Devices Regulation are indeed the language of the auditors for medical industry and it is hard for the manufacturers to truly give comments on it. Hence, Dr. Hyzan suggested in appointing Dr. KM Loy, from OSA Technology as the technical committee to assist in interpreting and providing comments on the regulation draft since he has wide experience dealing with the act and regulation for medical industry. All the members agreed with Dr. Hyzan’s suggestion to appoint Dr. KM Loy (TBC) and he will also be the lead of the working committee. Members were also requested to nominate one/two of their technical member to participate in the working committee. Other than the members, professionals from related industry are also welcomed to join this working committee.
Besides, Dr. Hyzan also pointed out that neighbors’ of Malaysia such as Indonesia, Thailand, as well as South Korea are indeed very strong in protecting their country’s local manufacturers of medical industry since the top five list of the country’s brand for medical industry are always the local manufacturers. This is definitely the opposite for Malaysia as the multinational companies for medical industry are always dominating. For this reason, it is crucial for the group to comments on the draft of Medical Devices Regulation before it is too late to act in protecting the local manufacturers.
Apart from that, Encik Salleh Tahir did mentioned that since Malaysia does not have proper acts/regulations to control other countries’ company to bring in medical devices and equipments, this has lead Malaysia to become the dumping country for medical equipments in government hospitals. Consequently, it has caused some maintenance and safety issues over the “dumped” devices/equipment in the government hospitals. As a result, the group commented that it is hence vital for them to suggest that Malaysia should have imposed fees to those medical devices/equipments which pass by or being manufactured in Malaysia in order to protect the local medical industry.
2. Establishing of Malaysia’s Pavilion for abroad medical exhibition – In addition to the protection for Malaysia’s local medical manufacturers, Mr. Benny Yeo from Infinity 21 (M) Sdn. Bhd. suggested in establishing pavilion booth for Medical Show abroad which was also a good start for local medical players in introducing them to other countries. This suggestion was well accepted and will be soon carry out.
3. Change of Medical Supplies Industry Group (MSIG) to Medical Technology Industry Group (MTIG) – The meeting continued with the suggestion of changing MSIG to MTIG as it will allows more members to join the group as the voice for the medical industry.
The meeting concluded at 12pm after each of the agenda has been discussed and decided on the date of next meeting of MTIG to be on 21st December 2010 (Tuesday).
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