By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, May 3: Prof Tan Sri Dr Mohamad Taha Arif, who was the only Sarawakian to hold the post of director-general (DG) of Health Malaysia, passed away at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) yesterday (May 2).
In a social media post yesterday, Deputy Premier Datuk Amar Dr Sim Kui Hian extended his heartfelt condolences to the family of the late Dr Taha, who left an indelible mark on public health and infectious disease control over his 40-year career.
According to The Malaysian Medical Gazette, Dr Taha served as Malaysia’s health director-general from 2001 to 2005.
He earned his MBBS degree from the Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, in 1974 and began his career as a medical officer in rural Sarawak. In 1979, he received a British Council scholarship to study Public Health at the University of Glasgow. Upon returning to Sarawak, he assumed increasing responsibilities, eventually rising to the position of deputy state director for health.
Subsequently, Dr Taha held various significant roles in Malaysia, including state director of Health in Negeri Sembilan and Kelantan. He also served as the director of the Institute of Medical Research (IMR) and the Disease Control Division of the Ministry of Health (MOH). In 1997, he returned to Sarawak as the state director of health.
During the 1999 Nipah encephalitis outbreak, Dr Taha was appointed as the director of the Disease Control Division. He continued to serve, becoming the deputy director-general of Health for Public Health in 2000. Additionally, he served as chairman of the National Heart Institute (IJN) and as dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University Malaysia Sarawak (Unimas).
Dr Taha played a crucial role in combating the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as the Nipah and SARS outbreaks in Malaysia.
Having paid respects to Dr Taha yesterday, Dr Sim described him as an impeccable, soft-spoken gentleman, down to earth without any ego.
Reflecting on Dr Taha’s contributions, Dr Sim noted, “If it were not for him, the Sarawak Heart Centre would not be under MOH, let alone be ranked by Newsweek as one of the top 100 Heart Centres for the Asia Pacific in 2023.”
Dr Sim recalled an instance when Dr Taha, as the dean of medicine at Unimas, expressed concerns about Unimas’ readiness to operate the Sarawak Heart Centre due to limited human resources and the availability of medical specialists.
“He asked me to tell the late Tun Pehin Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud that Unimas was not ready to operate Sarawak Heart Centre as Unimas’ University Hospital for another three years due to limited resources,” he shared.
This led to a series of discussions, resulting in the federal government’s decision to operationalise the Sarawak Heart Centre under MOH.
“In June 2000, then Taib asked me to draft a letter to (former prime minister Datuk Seri) Najib (Razak) for the federal government to operationalise Sarawak International Medical Centre or SIMC (now known as Sarawak Heart Centre). The federal cabinet decided that SIMC should become Unimas’ University Hospital.
“In August 2000, after Dr Taha’s conversation with me, I had to draft a second letter for Taib to Najib where the federal cabinet then reversed the decision and for SIMC to become Heart Centre under MOH,” he added.
On January 1, 2011, SIMC was operationalised by the MOH as the SGH Heart Centre, six months after a political decision was made. Later, it evolved into what is now known as the Sarawak Heart Centre. SIMC had been built and completed three years earlier, but it remained non-operational until then.
More importantly, Dr Sim emphasised this decision helped alleviate the critical shortage of beds (170 beds) at SGH. — DayakDaily
