KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry (MoH) will soon submit to the Cabinet a memorandum for a moratorium on convictions involving attempted suicide in courts, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the move was made to defer sentencing of the offence under Section 309 of the Penal Code until amendments to the Act are made to decriminalise suicide attempts.
"The paper is now with the ministry's Cabinet Unit and pending review by other ministries," he said in response to queries from Tengku Zulpuri Shah Raja Puri (PH-Raub) and Che Alias Hamid (Pas-Kemaman) during the 2022 Budget debate.
Khairy earlier said between March 25 last year and Nov 7 this year, a total of 232,873 calls were made to psychosocial hotlines managed by the Health Ministry and Mercy Malaysia; and Talian Kasih (under the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry).
"The callers shared various issues including job loss, loss of income and marital problems, with about 80 per cent of them warranting emotional and psychological support.
"Some of them were referred to various agencies for intervention."
On Covid-19 management, Khairy said a national tabletop exercise has been conducted to prepare a simulation in the event of a surge in Covid-19 cases, as experienced in some states.
He said it was conducted after taking into consideration the experience from the Greater Klang Valley Task Force, including the decanting process to transfer non-Covid-19 patients to private hospitals.
It was to allow resources government hospitals could be optimised to treat Covid-19 patients.
"One of the lessons is that we did not have a clear picture of the total number of available beds (inwards) to determine where we could send the patients to," he said in addressing a query from Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad (PH-Kuala Selangor).
Khairy said other enhancements included the implementation of virtual Covid-19 Assessment Centres (CAC) for Covid-19 categories 1 and 2 patients who would also recover from the infection at home.
He said a simulation was also conducted for a crisis such as a surge in Covid-19 cases in flood-stricken areas.
Khairy said under the 2022 Budget, a total of RM32.41 billion was allocated to the ministry, a 1.5 per cent or RM0.47 billion increase compared with this year's budget.
Of the total, RM28.03 billion is allocated for operating expenditure (OE) and RM4.38 billion for development expenditure (DE).
In managing Covid-19, he said the ministry has received approval for an allocation of RM2 billion fund for vaccination programme and another RM2 billion to increase public healthcare capacities like medicines, disposable items, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and health kits.