KOTA KINABALU: Rural folk “should not be worried” over the cessation of the 41-year-old Flying Doctor Services (FDS) with effect from today.
State Health Department director Dr Christina Rundi said that for the past few months the department had looked into ways to strengthen other services in remote villages under the purview of the FDS and would “try all ways and means”, including the use of any available airline services, to support all areas in Sabah.
“We do not look at the end of the contract of flying doctor services as the end of our services to the rural community,” said the director after alunching the EndoQE 2016 at Queen Elizabeth Hospital here yesterday.
“In places that are hard to reach, actually it seems heli (helicopter) also find it hard to reach because of the weather conditions, but basically, we will not look at the flying doctor as an interruption.
“The main thing is how we serve the rural area, whether by air, sea, or river, land, that is the bottom line.
“We need to also make people understand that it (FDS) is on a monthly basis, but sometimes weather conditions and other issues they are not able to fly. So we will miss that particular month.
“So Sabah Health Department has looked into how we can make sure that we are able to cover those villages every month and one of the things that may be workable will be land mode, land transport,” she said.
However, Dr Christina said, air services would be maintained on case-by-case basis for medical evacuation and inter-facility transfer between hospitals throughout Sabah
“So people should not be worried because it is not our style to just give up on the rural people because that is one of our cores,” she said.
“Equity and access, that have always been our principle. So if we cannot provide it by air, we will actually support it by land, sea, or river,” she assured.
Christina said the department had several plans in the pipelines and had already started the gradual process of strengthening. Long established services, such as its mobile clinics, are no longer on an ad hoc service as it has been converted into a dedicated unit.
She added that additional 10 vehicles had been secured this year alone especially for the mobile clinics, which utilize a lot of vehicles such as land transportation and big boats that are located in places like Semporna, Kinabatangan and Jambongan Island.
The department also had a retrieval team, consisting of experts, that would travel to the patient’s location to stabilize them should the need arise before they were transported to any intended facility, the director elaborated.
“We are also looking seriously into where there is a need to put a static facility, as we need to put a static facility,” said Christina
“That is a work in progress. Static facilities areas are continuously being identified,” she explained, adding the decision would be made according to area development and population movement .
The director revealed that there were 300 desa clinics currently, located in all districts statewide.