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Malaysia Needs Greater Efforts To Prevent The Resurgence Of Infectious Diseases Due To Immigrant Workers Statement by Dr Tan Seng Giaw, DAP National Vice-Chairman and MP for Kepong on the Immigration director-general's intention to have local health tests for foreign workers on 27 May 2000. 28 May 2000 | |||||||
| One estimate shows the number of foreign workers in Malaysia as over two millions. The actual figure is unknown. What is certain is that some foreigners bring in infectious diseases such as tuberculosis and AIDS. We require greater efforts to prevent the resurgence of these diseases, such as by having more stringent health tests and greater surveillance. Yesterday, Immigration director-general Datuk Aseh Che Mat said that he would like foreign workers including maids to have their health screened within a month of starting work instead of having the checkup in their home country. "Last year, 8,586 out of 435,279 workers undergoing checkups to renew their working permits were found to be unfit while 18,124 out of 510,000 were unfit in 1998. They had, among others, hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis," he added. Aseh's recommendation for foreign workers to have local health tests within one month of employment in this country is correct. But, this must not be monopolised by one company. The director-general insisted that, starting from next month, new workers would be examined locally by Fomema Sendirian Berhad when they got here. In such a monopoly, the screening may not be efficient and the allocation of workers to doctors may be biased. In fact, there are complaints of discrimination against certain doctors and irregularities in the payment of fees. If there were to be alternative companies, discrimination and irregularities would be reduced. We have spoken about the wrong move by the Government to appoint only one company to do health tests on immigrants. The appointment of these | |
companies must be strictly based on merit and need, not on factors like party political patronage. Although the Government has taken acton to curb illegal immigrants, there are still hundreds of thousands who enter the country. Besides the long shorelines, other factors such as police malpractices including corruption have been mentioned for the continued increase in the number of illegals. No doubt, depressed economy in their respective home countries is a major factor. How many millions of illegals are in Malaysia? Nobody knows. Those workers who register such as 510,000, can be screened. Illegals are at large. Not only do they have diseases as mentioned, some may have leprosy and AIDS. For example, pulmonary tuberculosis. Virtually all Malaysian children have Bacille-Calmette-Guerin, BCG, vaccinations against tuberculosis. Illegals may not. Those who have tuberculosis may have resistant strain of the disease especially because of the pandemic AIDS. The former is increasingly difficult to treat and the latter is incurable at present. Tuberculosis is known for over 5,000 years. It is estimated that 10 million people in the world have tuberculosis yearly and three million dying from the disease. Owing to better nutrition and improved social conditions, the incidence of diseases such as tuberculosis and leprosy have gone down in this country. Recently, with the surge of immigrants, in particular illegals, there is a resurgence of these diseases. Therefore, it is all the more necessary to increase vigilance such as by doubling the efforts of screening foreign workers and effective action to curb illegals.
Dr Tan Seng Giaw | |||||
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