Hostels soon for patients, kin from rural areas

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KOTA KINABALU: Suitable sites are being surveyed in order to build hostels to provide accommodation for rural folk who accompanied their sick family members to Kota Kinabalu for medical treatment.

Sabah Credit Corporation (SCC) chief executive officer Datuk Vincent Pung said he was told by staff and nurses in Keningau Hospital that rural people were unwilling to go to Kota Kinabalu for treatment even though the hospital did not have the facilities to treat them because they could not afford it.

He said talks were underway since a year ago to identify suitable land to build the hospital.

Pung said that SCC has had a meeting with the Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Musa Haji Aman, Chief Judge of the High Court in Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Richard Malanjum and Sabah Land and Surveys Department director Datuk Osman Jamal to discuss this matter.

Once the land has been identified, SCC would fund the construction of the hostel as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) programme.

Pung said the hostel, or hostels, as he said one would not be sufficient, would be located around the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH).

“The Chief Minister has directed the Land and Surveys Department to identify old government quarters so we can take over and build the hostel on it,” he said in an interview after launching the new wing of Sabah Family Planning Association (FPA) Kota Kinabalu branch main clinic here yesterday.

He added that the hostel would be dormitory-style, with big bathrooms and toilets as well as kitchens for residents to cook.

Pung was considering having non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Sabah FPA and Sabah Nurses Association to manage the hostel.

Although Pung could not provide an exact timeline as to when the hostel would materialize, he said the project was one of urgency and he hoped that it could be done in a year.

He also believed that the project, which he said, was Musa’s vision, and driven by Richard who brought all parties together out of concern for rural people, would pull the strings better in order for him to execute the job.

On the other hand, Pung said SCC was also studying a proposal by the Sabah Nurses Association to build a home to provide care for retired nurses on the association’s land near the QEH roundabout here.

Pung said SCC was looking into the proposal as many of the retired nurses were without family and care.

“It is very important that we must not forget our senior citizens,” he stressed.