By Saiful Bahri Kamaruddin
Pix Ikhwan Hashim

KUALA LUMPUR, 7 March 2015 – Private entities set up under The National University of Malaysia (UKM) have to be more self reliant when expanding their businesses.

Vice-Chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Noor Azlan Ghazali said if they are profitable they should be paying their own way and have less reason to be asking for funds from UKM.

Speaking at a dialogue session with management, consultants and staff of UKM Specialist Centre (UKMSC) here today, Prof Noor Azlan said UKMSC must deliberate on its true mission while still operating as part of a public institution.

A business, he said, cannot survive purely by making money. It must have direction.

“I have a problem in starting a private institution subsidised by UKM, a public institution,” he explained at the dialogue which was held in conjunction with a lunch gathering organised by UKMSC to show appreciation to its specialist consultants.

UKM and UKMSC work as a Public-Private Partnership where the university does not subsidise their businesses saying that they need to discard the culture where they can only operate when they have enough financial resources. UKMSC, he said, has to look elsewhere for expenses.

The vice-chancellor said the era of the public university has changed and will probably continue to change to the extent that certain conventions have to be adjusted if it is to be an entrepreneurial university.

Earlier, UKMSC Chief Executive Officer Abdul Ghani Bin Pakir Mohamed, Chairman of its Board Prof Dr Nor Ghani Md Nor and the consultants had appealed to UKM to provide more beds and other amenities, although the specialist centre is already profitable.

At the dialogue, the doctors aired their grievances to the vice-chancellor from pleas for a new building to receiving late payments and complaints about high rentals they have to pay.

Set up in 1999 as Kompleks Rawatan Khas under the management of UKM Hospital, UKMSC has since 2001 been wholly managed by UKM Kesihatan Sdn Bhd. UKMSC began its operation as a private medical centre on 22 April 2003, after obtaining its operating license from the Ministry of Health.

Among the specialist services it provides are cardiology, dermatology, gastroenterology, gerontology, haematology, nephrology, urology and gynaecology.

It also performs complex surgery, plastic surgery and cochlear implants.