By DayakDaily Team
KUCHING, July 26: Parti Bansa Dayak Sarawak (PBDS) permanent chairman Dr John Brian Anthony has sounded the alarm on what he described as the deepening healthcare staffing crisis and prolonged patient wait times in Sarawak’s public hospitals.
In a statement, he said this was reflected in the announcement that the Ministry of Health faces 4,352 unfilled medical positions across Malaysia.
John Brian said that in Sarawak, the geographical isolation of many rural areas, poor infrastructure, and lack of incentives make it difficult to attract and retain doctors, nurses, and pharmacists.
He also cited hospitals in Bau and Serian as examples, stating that only one to two specialists are available at any time, forcing rural patients to travel long distances to Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) in Kuching for specialist care.
“Meanwhile, frontline healthcare workers nationwide are burdened with 42-hour workweeks, leading to fatigue, burnout, and further attrition.
“Urban centres like Kuching remain overcrowded while rural clinics are grossly understaffed, creating a healthcare imbalance that places rural Dayak communities at severe risk,” he said.
In Miri Hospital, he said, patients reportedly wait over 12 hours in emergency departments (EDs) due to bed shortages.
He added that specialist appointments for non-urgent cases often take months, and pharmacy queues stretch from one to three hours due to staff shortages and outdated dispensing systems.
That being said, PBDS has called for the following immediate action plans:
- Accelerate hiring and retention of medical staff, including introducing rural incentive packages, such as higher pay, career advancement pathways, and improved housing facilities for rural-based healthcare workers.
- Expand rural teleconsultation programmes linking clinics to major hospitals like SGH.
- Optimise hospital and pharmacy operations.
In terms of structural and policy reforms, the party voiced its support for the Sarawak government’s push for healthcare autonomy under MA63, allowing State-tailored hiring, deployment, and policy strategies that suit Sarawak’s rural landscape.
The party also suggested expanding medical training pipelines, such as a collaboration with national bodies like the College of Physicians Malaysia, to fast-track specialist training and scaling up Sarawak-based medical education institutions to reduce reliance on talent from Peninsular Malaysia.
In addition, the party also brought up modernising infrastructure and digital health via the development of hospitals with artificial intelligence (AI)-assisted triage and internet of things (IoT)-enabled beds and implementing electronic medical records (EMR) across all Sarawak public health facilities to streamline patient management and reduce administrative delays.
Structural and policy reforms could also be achieved by the empowerment of community health programmes, such as supporting the MOH’s ‘War on Sugar’ campaign to combat non-communicable diseases (NCDs), and training and deploying community paramedics for basic healthcare delivery in interior areas, freeing up hospital resources for complex cases.
“PBDS firmly believes that health is a basic human right. The ongoing neglect of rural Sarawak reflects systemic inequity that cannot be allowed to persist.
“Without bold reforms, the rural-urban healthcare gap will only widen further marginalising our people,” he said.
Therefore, the party calls on the federal government to declare Sarawak’s healthcare situation a priority zone, publish a transparent staffing and service improvement plan, and provide adequate funding and autonomy to Sarawak’s health administration in line with the spirit of the Malaysia Agreement 1963 (MA63).
“The people of Sarawak deserve better. The time for federal excuses has passed. It is time for action, equity, and reform.” — DayakDaily
