KUCHING: The flying doctor service is still very much an essential component of the Sarawak government’s strategy in meeting the demand for healthcare and medical services in rural areas.
Assistant Minister of Public Health Dr Jerip Susil told the Borneo Post recently that the flying doctor service would definitely continue, as there remain vast areas in the state that can only be accessed by air, despite the increasing spread of infrastructure such as roads and logging tracks into interior areas.
“At this point in time, the flying doctor service is still very much needed, especially in areas close to the border such as Sepit in Ulu Padawan, Semban in Ulu Bengoh in the first division, Ulu Engkari in the second division and elsewhere like Ulu Baram and Ulu Rejang,” said the assistant minister.
The other essential component of rural ancillary healthcare services are the mobile clinics which travel to villages and longhouses in remote areas accessible by road and river systems but from which clinics are not easily reached because of far distances.
These mobile clinics will stay at these places for one or two days at a time and come equipped with basic medicine and medical equipment to treat most common medical ailments.
They also offer basic medical health screening for conditions such as diabetes and high-blood pressure. Trained staffs including medical assistants and nurses usually accompany these clinics.
“These mobile clinics will have a record of some of these long-standing illnesses like high blood pressure and diabetes, and are able to go to the villages and provide the necessary medicine to the affected villagers rather than them coming over to a clinic which may be far away,” said Dr Jerip.
He said that even though there was the criterion of a ratio of 1,500 people to every rural clinic, it needed to be adjusted to suit the unique situation of the state’s rural communities.
“We want to penetrate the rural areas as widely as possible, especially in very sparsely populated areas where we group them to one Klinik Desa – depending on how far the distance is.
“This is where the services of the mobile clinics help, so that people who are very far away from a Klinik Desa can still have access to some basic healthcare,” he elaborated.