By Jaythaleela K
MIRI, March 8: The construction of the new Miri Hospital extension is expected to be completed by 2024.
According to Minister of Health Malaysia (MOH) Dr Zaliha Mustafa today during a question-and-answer session in Parliament, the construction of the new extension is currently in progress.
She was responding to a question from Member of Parliament for Miri Chiew Choon Man on the government’s planning to upgrade Miri Hospital to be par with other hospitals in Malaysia.
Currently, Miri Hospital has 23 specialists and sub-specialists, with a 348-bed capacity.
“MOH always wants to improve the quality and delivery system of health services for the people of Sarawak, and has plans to upgrade the specialist services at Miri Hospital to be equivalent to the State Hospital services with 49 specialists and sub-specialists,” she said.
However, this plan will be carried out in phases depending on the current financial situation as well as sufficient manpower resources, Zaliha added.
Presently, Miri Hospital do not have cardiac care unit, and patients will only be given initial treatment before being referred to the Sarawak Heart Centre in Kuching.
“Likewise for cancer patients, initial treatment is still provided by Miri Hospital and will be referred to Sarawak General Hospital for further treatment,” she added.
Zaliha said, the lack of medical experts in Miri Hospital in these two fields (cardiology and oncology) is due to the insufficient number of cardiology and oncology specialists serving in MOH hospitals.
“Only 10 per cent of the 300 cardiologists throughout Malaysia work in KKM (MOH) hospitals while the rest are in private and university hospitals. Meanwhile, for oncology services, 35 per cent (58 people) of the 168 oncologists across the country serve at KKM hospitals while the rest provide services at private and university hospitals,” she said.
However, she said, although Miri Hospital does not have oncology and cardiology expertise permanently onsite, it does have a resident specialist in gynae-oncology and receives specialist visiting services periodically in the fields of pediatric cardiology and pediatric hemato-oncology. — DayakDaily
