Waqf-based and other social-based healthcare in Malaysia: a conceptual comparison / Raja Aishah Raja Adnan, Mahazan Abdul Mutalib@Taib and Muhammad Ridhwan Ab. Aziz

The different types of social-based healthcare in Malaysia presently, provide free healthcare to the poor and underprivileged and even discounted fee to regular patients. Even private hospitals provide some form of free healthcare under their corporate social responsible (CSR) programs. The objective of this study is to clarify their ambiguity and ‘fuzzy’ status and compare the different types of social-based healthcare and private hospital’s CSR with waqf based hospitals to show their similarities and differences. This study also aims to determine the extent of which these healthcare institutions provide the many forms of ‘free healthcare services’ to the general public. The research methodology used is the critical content analysis with manual and NVivo 12 coding. Initial findings show similarities in providing affordable healthcare to the public, free for the needy, the mission’s challenges and maintaining financial sustainability. However, they differ in their organizational systems and also in the fundamental underlying factor in their missions.