Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342)
KUCHING: Doctors and general practitioners (GP) who report suspected cases of infectious disease are given indemnity against any legal redress.
This was decided by the bipartisan Parliamentary Select Committee (PSC) on Health, Science and Innovation during its meeting to discuss provisions of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342) on Friday.
Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii who is chairman of the committee said the indemnity was necessary to ensure better protection for the doctors.
“This is to make sure they are better protected,” he said in a Facebook post on Saturday (Jan 15).
He also said that one of the bigger contentious issues was the quantum of fines (under the Act 342) especially for corporate bodies which would be discuss further by the committee and benchmarked against the best practices around the world.
“The quantum chosen by the government has to be justified and benchmarked against practices of other countries as well as data to justify the higher fines and whether it will increase compliance,” he said.
“The committee expressed reservations on the high fines set by the government and explored other options to be considered to better ensure compliance while balancing the risk of it being abused.
“Issues of selective, unregulated enforcement which may lead to risk of corruption were also brought up and ways to safeguard the public against that were also discussed.
The meeting was held with Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin, director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah and respective external panels to discuss matters concerning the Act 342.
Dr Yii said that the committee would continue to focus on the substance and policy direction of the Bill and ensure that the law would not victimise the vulnerable members of society.
“Such practices to review government bills by a bi-partisan select committee before tabling in Parliament is the way forward especially if we want to build a strong and mature democracy,” he said.
He stressed that the government should not bulldoze through any bill especially when it affects public interest.
