The Current Status and The Way Forward for Environmental Health in Malaysia

The Delivery of Environmental Health Services in Malaysia Series

Abstract

The delivery of environmental health in Malaysia is still in the maturity progress. The collaboration between stakeholders such as the government and the private sector is growing steadily. Through the process of maturing environmental health deliveries, some barriers need to be looked into. Some of the barriers such as information and communication, effective education, and solving methods among stakeholders can be solved if all agencies from the federal until the local council level work together strategically. In order to move forward in providing a comprehensive environmental health delivery, there are a few strategic ways to overcome the barriers such as enabling information and technology sharing among the stakeholders, producing quality decision-making processes that involved stakeholders active engagement, and participation in structured stakeholders' in operational guideline production that also involved not just government but also from private sectors. Lastly, for barriers to be broken, it just needs a few good strategies, cooperation, and determination. Over time, by having mutual understanding and overcoming the differences, one day Malaysia will succeed in providing a matured and comprehensive delivery of environmental health towards the community better than any developed country.  Strategic collaboration within the Malaysian environmental health service can be executed as seen in the country's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. This pandemic had forced the Ministry of Health to work together with various agencies within the government at both federal and state-level in an effective and efficient manner to curb the spread of the virus. The collaboration was proven to be a success story as Malaysia had become one of the countries that successfully managed to contain the virus, even better than developed countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. Malaysia has succeeded to handle COVID-19 and recognized as one of the leading countries in handling COVID-19 cases. If similar principles of collaboration during the handling of the COVID-19 virus being applied towards the environmental health service, Malaysia can stand tall amongst the countries that have environmental health services in an effective manner.