KUALA LUMPUR: Empowerment and investments in domiciliary community care will become part of the development of the Health White Paper (HWP).
Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said not everyone could afford private professional services to care for family members who are unwell or want to put their loved ones in a care home.
"They still want them around and there is nothing wrong with that. In this HWP, going forward, we will fight for better community care for patients who have mental illnesses like dementia.
"In the United Kingdom under the National Health Service, there are all sorts of domiciliary care services such as laundry and food delivery services for people facing dementia or other mental health illnesses.
"It is time that we pivot, not only just on clinical care, but towards providing services to the community. This is the bare minimum we can do for Malaysians suffering from this condition.
"I hope in the course of drafting the HWP and structuring the ministry's budget, we are able to make a strong case for social care services to be given additional funds so that we can provide more services," he said.
Khairy was speaking to reporters after launching the 2022 Malaysian Conference of Psychological Medicine and Clinical Practice Guidelines on Management of Dementia (Third Edition) and Management of Schizophrenia (Second Edition).
He said there were more people diagnosed with dementia, which affects cognitive ability and this condition causes a person to be unable to function normally.
"This problem will increase as we are an ageing society. We need to invest not just in the clinical field, but also have more specialists. Equally important is the support at the community-level.
"We will set up a committee with the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry to see how we can boost allocations so that social care at the community-level can be heightened for families who cannot afford to hire a nurse to care for a family member who has dementia," he said.
On a separate issue, Khairy said the paper on the decriminalisation of suicide was at the final stage at the Attorney-General's Chambers, before it is tabled to the cabinet.
He said the move to decriminalise suicide should not be seen as a silver bullet to address the issue, but a statement of intent aimed at acknowledging that it is not crime, but a mental issue.
"If you know someone who has attempted suicide, the answer is not to arrest them and bring them into the criminal justice system, but to help them and offer intervention.
"We will also continue the public campaign to normalise talking about mental health issues and seeking treatment," he said.
The ministry's initiative, he added, was to offer training to the police, first responders as well as Fire and Rescue Department on how to better respond to mental health crises, in particular, suicide.