Stephen Wong
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah’s new Health and People’s Well-being Ministry is expected to meet with its federal Health Ministry counterpart to get the health power devolution ball rolling on June 27.
Revealing this here yesterday, its minister, Stephen Wong Tien Fatt, said Sabah Health Department director Datuk Dr. Christina Rundi will join the trip with the relevant working papers.
“On June 27, we are going to meet up (with) our counterpart in Kuala Lumpur. I think we will have (an) in-depth discussion on whatever that we need to follow up,” said Wong.
“We are going to start on how to acquire our authority (power) from the federal. (With) that, we are going to start the ball rolling,” he disclosed during a working visit to Queen Elizabeth Hospital 1 (QEH1) here yesterday.
Wong told reporters during a press conference there that he had also asked QEH1 to prepare a working paper on all the proposals submitted to the previous government. He said this includes proposals involving RM13 million worth of medical equipment, such as gastro-enterology and orthopedic scopes, medical and patient monitors, and ventilators.
“Whatever that has been submitted to the previous government, give us a new one so that we can follow up from there. (It is) understandable that we are having problems in certain areas, of course, we need some funds and then some equipment,” said Wong.
“All these are urgent and necessary. Otherwise, some of our rooms, without these types of equipment cannot function well. All these facilities are definitely needed and, of course, previous suppliers could not supply and it is still hanging there. But anyway, I will take steps, we will try to pursue these things,” he added.
According to QEH1 director, Dr. Heric Corray, the past RM13 million equipment snafu was caused by the limited tender and international delivery period, among others.
“There were situations where the company was unable to supply. They actually accepted our purchase orders but they decided to withdraw. There were also situations where they didn’t have time to bring the equipment across from overseas,” Corray said.
“Because most of the equipment are manufactured overseas, the time given to us was too short for us to purchase them. If the money had come a little earlier then it would have been better but because the money came sometime in the middle of the year, and so it was pretty difficult, so they couldn’t actually supply. We can still run the service at the moment but those equipment are important because right now we are very short of those equipment. Service still can run with the numbers that we have now but we need those equipment quickly so we can improve our quality of service,” he added.
Meanwhile, Wong said the ministry is also considering encouraging public use of the ‘park and ride’ shuttle bus service from KK Sentral to QEH1 and improving the hospital car parking facility.
“It seems that most of them (public) do not want to do this (use shuttle service) and would rather come here and squeeze (into the parking spaces),” said the Minister.
“But anyway, we will try to work out a solution, see whether we want to continue to encourage the people to use this public shuttle service or whatever. We will look into that possibility or try to improve our parking facility here,” he added.
Wong is also looking at the possibility of digitizing QEH1.
“A few major hospitals are still not computerized. I think that at this age, everyone is talking about IT. We should have (it). I will be working together on this and will allow the hospital to give me the input on how it can be worked out,” he said.