KUCHING: Sarawak needs to be equipped with more healthcare facilities and services to cater to the growing needs of the people in the state due to its geographical challenges and distances.
Deputy Premier Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian said the recent achievement of Sri Aman Hospital showed that with appropriate hospital facilities and commitment of the medical staff, a congenital Cleft Palate could even be operated successfully there.
Sarawakians, he said, for too long had been suffering and disadvantaged by distances when it came to medical treatment (healthcare) not just within Sarawak but also within Malaysia.
“This is why I had said many times during my time as Senator in Parliament of Malaysia as well as meetings with the Health Ministry that the standard of allocating or distributing (medical) services and facilities based on populations is not suitable for Sarawak,” he said.
Apart from the sheer size of the state as well as the scattered population, he stressed that the ministry must consider the distances.
Dr Sim questioned what if an accident happened along the Pan Borneo Highway—almost the same distance as the North South Highway in West Malaysia—yet there are only specialists for trauma, orthopaedic, plastic, facial-maxillary, Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) in Kuching.
“This is one of the reasons Sarawak wants to have its health autonomy (with the federal government continuing to fund as per constitution) so that we can run the service ourselves,” he said in a Facebook post on today (Feb 20).
“It will also save the federal government a lot of headache from managing different operational norms within one healthcare system, ” he added.
Dr Sim also congratulated Dr Ragnild Redit, a plastic surgeon from Sarawak General Hospital (SGH), and the anesthesiology team for successfully performing the surgery at the new Sri Aman Hospital last Friday.
He also proposed to rename the hospital as Hospital Simanggang to reflect the change of name of the town, as some were confused with the new hospital while others called it Sri Aman Hospital 2.
The government hospital in Sri Aman comprises the old and new buildings known as Sri Aman Hospital I and Sri Aman Hospital II.
The new hospital (Sri Aman Hospital II) started its operation on September last year, offers seven specialist services, namely General Medicine, Paediatrics, General Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynaecology (O&G), Orthopedics, Radiology and Anaesthesiology.
Once dubbed a sick project due to a long delay, the RM200mil hospital is equipped with 108 beds and the latest medical equipment benefiting those in Sri Aman and surrounding areas.
