PRESS RELEASE
The DAP Organising Secretary, Mr. Lim Kit Siang, today called for an immediate re-organisation of the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital to cut out all inefficiency, delay, deplorable service and incompetence which has made it one of the most inefficient hospitals in Malaysia.
Mr. Lim said the re-organisation of the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital should be the first step to overhaul the entire deplorable health service system in the country.
Mr. Lim said the people most affected by the deplorable service and standard of the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital are the poor and those from the lower income groups. The more well-to-do can afford to go to private clinics and hospital.
Mr. Lim said it was a shocking experience to visit the outpatient departments of the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital. Patients form outstation queue up early in the morning for medical attention. It is not unusual for them to wait the whole day without getting medical attention. Some who want to get medicine, which shouldn’t take more than half an hour, had to wait the whole morning or even the whole day.
What is singularly lacking, not only in the Kuala Lumpur General Hospital, but the entire health service system, is the spirit to care for the sick.
As a result, the sick and poor, when they go to hospital, go through a lot of suffering, hardship and difficulties, which are entirely unnecessary.
Mr. Lim blamed the Alliance government for this deplorable state of affairs. He said the Alliance government was more interested in prestigious showpieces, like expensive building, than in actual service to the poor and sick.
Mr. Lim suggested that the first step the government should take to overhaul the entire health service system is to put a dynamic Minister in charge of the Ministry.
He said it was ridiculous to demote Dr. Ng Kam Poh, the former Health Minister, in order to put in his place 69-year old Capt. Hamid Khan, who had to take one-month’s leave after three days in his new Ministry.
Mr. Lim said Capt. Hamid Khan will need more medical attention himself, than to devote time to overhaul the medical service.
Audited on 2021-03-17