Eight is enough beds for Dalat Hospital

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KUCHING: It may come as a surprise to many to know that the Dalat Hospital has only eight beds for its inpatients.

In terms of the number of beds in 22 hospitals in Sarawak, the Dalat Hospital has the least number while Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) has the highest number of 765 beds.

What is even more surprising of the Dalat Hospital is that, the eight beds are not even fully occupied. According to State Health Director Datu Dr Zulkifli Jantan, the present occupancy rate was only 50 per cent.

Dr Zulkifli said the hospital has been enough to cater for the needs of the district which has a population of about 40,000.

“There is no future plan to expand the hospital. The rest of the needs are provided by Mukah Hospital which is only 30km away,” Dr Zulkifli told The Borneo Post.

He said there was only one doctor stationed at the hospital at any one time, but the number has increased to two, which was enough for Dalat.

“The two doctors are enough to manage the wards which consist of maternity and inpatient wards as well as emergency. The staffing is enough to run the hospital.

“And as the hospital itself was built as a hospital, it has all the necessary facilities and services such as x-ray laboratory. There are enough services in the hospital for the people,” said Dr Zulkifli.

Meanwhile, Dalat assemblywoman Datuk Fatimah Abdullah when contacted said there have been attempts to bring up the matter, however, she was notified that Dalat Hospital, despite the name, is only a health clinic.

“And our system is such that in a parliamentary area, there should be only one hospital. In this case, it is the Mukah Hospital,” said Fatimah.

She said, since there is a good system of transportation, any needs which Dalat Hospital could not handle would be referred to Mukah Hospital or even Sibu Hospital.

“What I would like to bring up here is that, though Dalat is small, we have a dialysis centre. It was built due to the effort of a few donors,” said Fatimah who is also Minister of Welfare, Women and Family Development.