[UPDATED] Malaysia’s longest-serving health minister Chua Jui Meng dies aged 80

KUALA LUMPUR – The nation’s longest-serving former health minister Datuk Chua Jui Meng has died today aged 80. 

MCA president Datuk Seri Wee Ka Siong told Scoop that Chua, who served as health minister for nine years from 1995 to 2004, had breathed his last at 4.14pm. 

MCA spokesman Mike Chong Yew Chuan had also confirmed the former five-term Bakri MP’s demise with Scoop.

While his cause of death remains unknown, Chua was reportedly hospitalised after suffering a heart attack last week. 

During his long tenure as health minister, Chua received brickbats from opposition parties over his handling of the nation’s worst dengue epidemic and the SARS crisis. He also oversaw the Nipah virus outbreak that lasted from 1998 to 1999.

After joining MCA in 1976, Chua worked up the party’s ranks to become vice-president in 1990 and stayed with the Barisan Nasional coalition member until 2009, when he joined the then-opposition party PKR. 

While Chua was appointed Johor PKR chief, he was also stripped of two Datuk titles conferred by the Johor palace in 2010. However, he was still referred to as a “Datuk” due to a title conferred by the sultan of Pahang. 

In the 2013 general election, Chua lost the fight for the Segamat parliamentary constituency to then-MIC president and the seat’s incumbent, Tan Sri Dr S. Subramaniam, by a mere 1,217 votes.

PKR conveyed its condolences to Chua’s family and acknowledged his service as Johor PKR chief from 2009 to 2014.

“It was under his leadership that PKR won the Batu Pahat parliamentary seat and Bukit Batu state seat in the 2013 general election,”  the party said on its Facebook page.

In his later years, Chua delved into his Christian faith and was a speaker at church gatherings. – December 3, 2023