Declining poverty and better access to health care improved the health status of Malaysians

The decline in incidence of poverty has significantly contributed to the health of Malaysian people since independence. The poor benefited from increase in household income which improved the access to health care. The incidence of poverty in Malaysia has dramatically declined from 52.4 % to 5.1 % from 1970 to 2002. The poverty decline was through the introduction of New Economic Policy (NEP) earlier and later the National Development Policy (NDP) for the hardcore poor which incorporated a package of economic, social, housing, health and provision of basic amenities to the hard core poor. To improve access to health care there has been an increase in the development of health services. There was an increase in the number of hospitals and rural midwife clinics to 116 and 1934 respectively during this period. There has been an increase of manpower also e.g. the doctor: population ratio has improved to 1:1377 (2003). All these developments have lead to the improvement in health status of the people and decline in the incidence of communicable and non-communicable diseases. In this period the maternal mortality rate declined from about 500 per 100,000 live births in 1957 to about 40 per 100,000 live births in 2005 and infant mortality rate declined from about 75 per 1000 live births to about 5.1 per 1000 in 2006 and the life expectancy improved from 50 years in 1957.to 75.3 years for females and 70.7 for males in 2005. These improvements are due to the development of rural health services such as the three-tier and later the two tier health system which provided the access to health care. The emphasis on primary health care for the rural poor provided the much needed accessibility and availability of health services and this partly contributed to the improved health of the people