Category: Health

By Michael Kaung
May 15, 2011 | Free Malaysia Today

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah DAP said that it has received scores of complaints regarding the services rendered by the Federal Health Ministry to Sabahans in terms of quality of treatment, medical supplies and equipment.

Junz Wong, state DAP assistant secretary, said that both the patients and doctors are unhappy and frustrated with the state of affairs in the medical and health services.

The party believes that Sabahans are among the most ill-cared for citizens in Malaysia due to lack of drugs and healthcare equipment.

Wong justifies his claim by pointing out that Sabah only one radiotherapy machine for the whole state.

In the past, before the Sabah Medical Centre (SMC) was bought over by government, the hospital rented the radiotherapy machine.

Now after taking over the SMC hospital, the government is still renting it. Continue reading “Sabah health services limping along”

Letters
by P.S. Nathan

I served as the Timbalan Pengarah Kesihatan (Pergigian) for Negeri Sabah from August 1987 to Nov 1990, In short I was posted from Johore to Sabah to take charge of the Dental Service there.

In 1985 a Survey of Dental Health of the School Children in Sabah was carried out, and I was part of that team that conducted that survey. My team covered mainly the East Coast area of Lahad Datu, Semporna and Padang Tunku area.I was also a member of the Committee that drafted the Survey report, and the Committee made Recommendations for the improvement of the Status of Dental Health of the School Children of Sabah.One of the main recomendations was that all Public Water Supplies should be Fluoridated.

In 1989 the then Sabah State Government took the most Unfortunate step of ‘discontinuing the Fluoridation of Public Water supplies in the State of Sabah’ Because “Water” was a state matter, the Ministry of Health could not do anything besides presenting the Report of the Special Committee of the World Health Organisation’ that did indeed recommend the “Fluridation (the optimisation of Fluoride levels) of the Public Water Supplies.That Special Committee of the World Health Organisation also noted that ‘Fluoridation of Public water supplies was the Most Cost-Effective Public Health Measure known to man’. Continue reading “The destruction of SMILES in the Land Below the Wind”

I am shocked and outraged by a letter I have received from a serving medical officer of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu about the deplorable conditions of the hospital complexes in Sabah particularly Kota Kinabalu which had been likened to Vietnam refugee camp.

Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai had been Health Minister for more than two years and despite repeated complaints, he had turned a complete deaf ear and blind eye to the prolonged healthcare crisis and the deplorable hospital conditions in Sabah particularly in Kota Kinabalu.

The serving doctor in QEH wrote of the horrors suffered by the sick in Kota Kinabalu where they are subjected to “a wicked game of musical chairs” shunted around various hospital centres according to their changing healthcare needs as “there is not a single centre that can address a patient as a whole”.

The medical maze, which has brought total chaos to healthcare services in Sabah, includes the state’s only referral centre, Queen Elizabeth Hosptal and nearby centres like Hospital Bukit Padang the mental institution, Hospital Likas, the makeshift hospital in Lingzhi Museum in Kepayan and Umno’s favourite Sabah Medical Centre (SMC). Continue reading “Najib should give Liow Tiong Lai an ultimatum to resolve the Sabah health crisis or be sacked”

TUARAN, March 5 (Bernama) — Former Sabah deputy chief minister Datuk Wilfred Bumburing has called on the Health Ministry to expedite the upgrading of the Tuaran hospital to cater for the health care needs of about 120,000 people living in the area.

He said the hospital was in dire need of upgrading and it was sad that a hospital for a large district like Tuaran, with a population of 120,000, had no bed at all.

“I was also told that the hospital had been downgraded to a clinic in the past. In my speech in Parliment last year to debate the 2010 budget I have outlined all the reasons and rationale as to why the construction of the hospital is most urgently needed,” he told reporters here on Friday.

However the member of Parliment for Tuaran denied DAP advisor Lim Kit Siang’s recent allegation that the BN government had not done anything to develop Tuaran.

Bumburing said the Health Ministry had assured him that the second phase construction of the hospital would start this year.

“While appreciating Kit Siang’s concern, I have to mention that we in the Barisan Nasional have carried our duty and responsibility in bringing up to the relevant authorities matters that are of urgent public interest,” he said.
Continue reading “Bumburing Calls On Health Ministry To Expedite Upgrading Work On Tuaran Hospital”