HEALTHCARE BOOST: Liow (third left), accompanied by Dawos (second left) and BN candidate for Bengoh Dr Jerip (left), being briefed on the plan for the new clinic.
KUCHING: A better healthcare service for the people living in and around Siburan district is now in the pipeline.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, when making a working visit to the Siburan rural clinic, yesterday reaffirmed that a new, bigger and modern clinic for Siburan at a cost of RM22 million will be built.
“The existing clinic will be relocated to a site of 11.65 acres also within the Siburan township. This project will be implemented within our second rolling plan where the implementation is expected to start in 2013.
“This means by 2016 the people in this area will have a better healthcare service,” he said.
Liow, who was accompanied by Deputy Tourism Minister Datuk Dr James Dawos and BN candidate for Bengoh Dr Jerip Susil, said at the meantime the government would upgrade the present clinic to provide greater comforts to the public.
“While we are planning to build a new clinic and we are not going to let the present one remain as it is. We are going to do some upgrading to this clinic and this will be implemented immediately.
“We will make use of the ground floor for out-patient clinic and the top floor for mothers and child healthcare,” he said.
That, he said, will be the immediate plan to help address the problem of congestion at the Siburan clinic while waiting for the construction of the new clinic.
He said that the present clinic was built in 1983 and in view of the growing population in the area it was high time for the district to have a bigger and better government clinic.
Meanwhile, he said the approval for the new project as well as the upgrading for the existing clinic, although coincided with the state election, should not be construed as an effort by the government to get votes.
“We know that the opposition will say that any projects we approved or implement during this period are election gimmicks and that is untrue.
“Being a responsible government and with the mandate the people have given to us we have always been sensitive to the need of the rakyat. Not just during elections but something on-going,” he disclosed.
Therefore, he pointed out, it was unfair for the oppositions to say that whatever the government was doing was to fish for votes.
To back him, Dawos said that the proposed new clinic for Siburan actually had long been planned.
“We have put up our proposal since 2006 when I launched the Siburan Computer Centre and we are glad that the Health Minister himself has agreed to come personally to have a look at the situation here.
“We are also glad that after having viewed the condition here he has agreed to approve a substantial amount for the implementation of the project. So people cannot say that is an election gimmick,” he said.
Instead, he said, the rakyat should appreciate what the government and the Health Ministry in particular, had done for the betterment of the people.
He said that a lot of things had to be done to improve the present clinic and they all required funding.
Among the areas that had to be seriously looked into now was the improvement to the drainage system and termite control.
“Since the building is of wooden structure termites have caused quite a serious threat to the clinic and this we will seriously look into,” he said.