If there are no monkeys, how come the tree is shaking?

If there are no monkeys, how come the tree is shaking?

IJN Holdings Sdn. Bhd. denied through the media this evening on the proposal to ‘privatise’ part or whole of the IJN, an expose’ carried first by BigDogDotCom.

Bernama.com has the story:

October 22, 2009 23:15 PM

IJN Holdings Has No Plan To Privatise IJN

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 22 (Bernama) — IJN Holdings Sdn Bhd has no intention to privatise the Institut Jantung Negara (IJN) or any section of the nation’s premier heart centre.

It denied that any submission to do so has been sent to the Economic Planning Unit (EPU) in the Prime Minister’s Department.

IJN Holdings, in a statement today, said the IJN Group remains committed to deliver the best cardiac care for the people n line with its corporatisation objectives.

The IJN Group consists of IJN Holdings as the holding company and has four subsidiaries. They are IJN Sdn Bhd, IJN Capital, IJN College and IJN International.

IJN Holdings, wholly-owned by MOF Inc, was incorporated in March 2005 as part of a corporate restructuring exercise approved by its board and the government to facilitate fund-raising for redevelopment of the National Heart Centre’s facilities and its expansion into education and training.

It said the exercise had also consolidated IJN’s key activities to create better focus in its areas of expertise.

“The 2005 restructuring was to support the IJN in achieving its vision of becoming a global centre of excellence in cardiovascular and acrdiothoraic care and ensuring the heart centre as an institution remain sustainable in facing future challenges,” it added.

– BERNAMA

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It has attracted a lot of attention, which include mainstream media The Malay Mail. The merits of the attention is acredited to the proposal to privatise IJN to congolmerate Sime Darby Group last December, first highlighted and championed by the blogs.

Earlier, Minister in charge of EPU and former Minister of Finance II Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yackop also vehemently denied the report.

M Star.com.my has the story too:

Khamis Oktober 22, 2009

Kerajaan sahkan INSTITUT JANTUNG NEGARA tidak akan diswastakan

KUALA LUMPUR: Kerajaan hari ini mengumumkan bahawa ia tidak akan menswastakan Institut Jantung Negara (IJN) sama ada secara keseluruhannya mahupun sebahagian.

Perkara ini dijelaskan oleh Menteri di Jabatan Perdana Menteri, Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop ketika dihubungi BERNAMA hari ini.

Beliau telah diminta menjelaskan isu ini ekoran tersebarnya khabar angin terbaru kononnya IJN untuk kali yang kedua menjadi subjek kepada pengambilalihan secara penswastaan.

Sebelum ini cadangan Sime Darby untuk membeli kepentingan dalam IJN telah mendapat bantahan majoriti rakyat sehingga pelan itu gagal direalisasikan.

“Unit Perancangan Ekonomi (EPU) belum memberi sebarang kelulusan bagi penswastaan IJN,” katanya semasa dihubungi Bernama.

“Tiada apa (kelulusan) telah dihantar kepada kami. Malah, walau sesiapa pun datang menemui kami mengenai perkara itu, tiada apa yang akan diswastakan, tidak secara sebahagian atau secara keseluruhan,” kata beliau lagi.

Menurut laporan beberapa laman blog, Lembaga Pengarah IJN telah dibenarkan untuk melakukan skim merungkaikan aset secara meluas, yang merupakan satu langkah yang pada akhirnya memisahkan fungsi operasi institut itu dan mewujudkan anak syarikat baharu.

IJN kini beroperasi di dalam bentuk IJN Holdings Sdn Bhd yang memiliki Hospital IJN. Terdapat juga IJN Capital dan IJN College di bawah pengurusan sedia ada sekarang.

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It is great news to Malaysians. At least to the 1.5 million patients already benefitted from the government-built-most-successful-heart-hospital in the world.

Our “Thirteen Million Ringgit” joint-question to the YB Minister and Board of Directors of IJN Holdings Sdn. Bhd. is that, why get Ernst and Young to do the study if there was no intention to fragmentise the one time only one entity IJN Sdn. Bhd. further? Obviously, the study must have a purpose and eventually, a motive and/or intent.

The fact is that, the proposal include the creation of more subsidiaries which include IJN Asset Sdn. Bhd., IJN Services Sdn. Bhd. and IJN Pharmacy Sdn. Bhd. According to the study conducted by Ernst and Young dated 13 October 2009, “Subsidiaries are responsible for their respective operations and core buisness activies and empowered to operate businesses independently with certain key decisions (as prescribed by the LOA) necesssitating holding company partcipation”. This is without a doubt is a privatisation exercise, the investment banking way of giving corporate advisory.

A government hospital which is already operating as a corporate body (for efficiency and emoluments of the healthcare professionals – to ensure top notch service without burdening the rakyat with ‘cost-plus’ intent) should not be fragmentised further that each department be turned into subsidiaries with making money as an objective. This will make services rendered costlier and would not benefit the rakyat.

On top of that, this proposal also very much resembles very closely the mechanism and intent of the Widespread Asset Unbundling (WAU) scheme, first introduced to a GLC (Malaysia Airlines) way back in 2002. It was brought upon by consultants Binafikir Sdn. Bhd. under the instruction of Nor Mohamed, who was then the Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister. Later, Binafikir Supremo Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar was appointed as Khazanah Holdings Bhd. CEO, during PM ‘Flip-Flop’ Dato’ Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s time.

The original form and structure IJN Sdn. Bhd. did not need fixing. It worked well and fine. The ten CABG surgeries on an average working day is a good testimony to that. As a government body, it definitely need not to be fragmentised into separate sendirian berhad entities. Unless, each entity needs to be a profit centre, which means that making profit is an objective of the exercise. That is defying the original spirit and tactical and strategical objective of the inception of IJN sixteen years ago by Fourth Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.

Will and has the restructuring of IJN bring about improvements? Perhaps. Then again IJN is about a cardiac hospital. Hence, the core operations of the hospital is pertinent to ensure the success of IJN and not peripherals such as facility management. In the restructuring plan, it made no mention of improving medical KPIs. Unless the restructuring involves adding more cardio thoracic surgeons, physicians, anaesthetists, radiologists, pharmacists, nurses, laboratory technicians, physiotherapists and/or dieticians, then it is all about changing form and legal ownership, billing and accounting procedures and rates.

The fact is that, each fragmentised entity would compete against each other rather than compliment. Especially for shared services. When there exist competiton within the same roof, then serving and giving care would fall behind against profit. Thus, this would bring the cost of operations more. If factored with the profit element which each business entity would naturally mark up for services rendered, then healthcare would cost more. Eventually, the rates would be at par with services offered by SJMC, KPJ Group, Pantai Group, Gleneagles and other premier private hospitals.

Eventually, everything would be unfold. Just like the episode where IJN was about to be hived off to Sime Darby Group, the management denied the development of the proposal. A member BOD of IJN Holdings Sdn. Bhd. was said to arragontly made a claim ”It is a done deal. There is nothing anyone could do”. And yet bloggers took the proposal into public domain which drew public outcry which halted the proposal. As they say, “If there are no monkeys, then who is shaking it?”.

source : bigdogdotcom