At a private clinic outside the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, a large and colorful mural provides a backdrop for drive-through COVID-19 screening, a mural that all too aptly illustrates the challenges the country is facing. 

Based on a photo, it depicts three exhausted front-line medical workers in full personal protective equipment commiserating with one another.

Announcing last Tuesday that Malaysia's king had agreed to declare a state of emergency, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said the country's healthcare system was at a breaking point. 

However, critics from the opposition and even within his own wobbly coalition have said that the emergency was more about shutting down efforts to oust Muhyiddin from power and possibly trigger an election. The biggest threat has come from within the prime minister's own coalition, from disgruntled elements in the former ruling party of 60 years, United Malays National Organisation (UMNO). 

Days after the emergency began, Muhyiddin said in a live address that while the declaration "may have raised some concerns among the people and the business community" it was enacted "with the sole intention of curbing the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is currently the biggest threat to the socioeconomic development of the country."

Aside from stemming the relentless political uncertainty of the past several weeks as new COVID-19 cases continued to hit record levels, the emergency declaration gives the government the power to pass temporary laws known as ordinances without any parliamentary approval. 

That gives the government pretty much unlimited power to requisition or take control of any private assets, such as requiring hotels to be used as quarantine centers or turning private buildings into temporary detention centers to relieve overcrowding prisons hit hard by COVID-19. 

And perhaps most significantly, it allows the government to mobilize and use the assets, labs and personnel of the country's extensive and highly regarded private health sector as it sees fit. 

Up till now, anyone requiring treatment for COVID-19 has been sent to a set of designated government hospitals. 

"There are a lot of institutional restrictions and regulations that prohibit the ease of movement of private sector's resources to the public health sector, or the public health sector using the private health sector's resources," says Azrul Mohd. Khalib from the Galen Centre for Health & Public Policy.

The emergency has now largely stripped those restrictions away, and the private medical sector has no say in the matter. 

"If they do not agree or refuse, we can use the said laws to fine the hospitals up to five million ringgit ($1.25 million). They can even be jailed if they don't agree," the country's senior minister for security Ismail Sabri Yaakob said at a press conference. 

But private hospitals don't need a stick to convince them to lend a hand to the national effort by taking in COVID-19 patients. 

"We are happy to assist the government for both COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 patients based on our capability and capacity," Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia's President Datuk Dr Kuljit Singh told a local newspaper. 

To health policy specialist Azrul, such statements underline that the government could have approached the private medical sector earlier for help. 

"They didn't really have to require an emergency declaration or proclamation in order for these resources to be so-called 'liberated' for the use of the public health emergency because the private sector has been offering themselves from March last year."

Up till now, everyone who tested positive for COVID-19 received free medical care from the state hospitals. Now the government faces the tricky challenge of how to pay for patients to be treated at private hospitals, especially if they require intensive care. 

Even those with medical insurance can't expect any help from their insurers, who specifically exclude coverage for pandemics. 

The health ministry is in discussion with the private hospitals, the finance ministry and even the central bank to create some kind of mechanism to fund private care for COVID-19 patients. 

Now, with the parliament suspended and the immediate risk of losing power removed, Muhyiddin and his government have no excuses not to give their full attention to overcoming such hurdles in the battle against the pandemic.

(Cover: A mural on the wall of a private clinic, Shah Alam, Malaysia, January 20, 2021. Rian Maelzer/CGTN)