Don't get sick, we don't have adequate medical facilities

KOTA KINABALU, 25 July 2009: Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) said Sabah had been a member state of Malaysia for the last 46 years but sadly the people are deprived of good medical care services.

SAPP Information Chief Chong Pit Fah said the worst is when the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), here, the only referral hospital for people residing in Sabah was declared unsafe.

He said the chaotic situation of the QEH meant that the people in the State and at the neighbouring districts are forced to seek vital referral attention either in Kuala Lumpur or Singapore .

"What would happen to the low income group who could not afford to seek medical attention overseas. Would the Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) Government just sit and let them suffer more and eventually die?" he asked.

He said Sabah is already short of doctors and the bad condition the QEH has made matters worse.

The Council of the Justices of the Peace, Sabah (Majaps) had said in a statement that based on a data collected in July 2007, the rate of patients per doctor in Sabah was one to 8,973 and there were cases of very sick people have to wait for months for a specialist doctor.

"Such situation warrants a proper and fully equipped general hospital here because Malaysians residing in the State deserved such facilities all this while," he said in a statement, here, today.

He said Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai had even stated several months ago during his visit here that the twin towers are to be built but works has yet to commence until today.

"If the twin towers are slated under the Tenth Malaysia Plan (2010-2014) that will means that works would only commence either early next year or at the end of the Plan.

"Do the people here who need a proper general hospital must wait for several more years? This is equivalent to tell them don’t fall sick now because we do not have proper general hospital," he said.

Chong said the Federal Government had announced a special grant of RM1 billion and two stimulus packages with RM6 billion for the first and nearly RM70 billion for the second, and yet there is no allocation to rebuild the QEH.

He said SAPP welcomed more private hospitals here but not the proposal to convert the abandoned old Wisma Khidmat building here.

He added that earlier this year the Federal Government had rejected the State Government proposal to convert the Wisma Khidmat as a hospital because the building is not suitable to be used as a hospital.