KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry is implementing its cluster hospital initiative in a bid to reduce overcrowding and patient density in state and specialist hospitals.
Deputy Minister Dr Lee Boon Chye said the initiative would combine all resources available in each hospital with that of other hospitals, including human resources, facilities and equipment, so that they could be optimised to improve the quality of service.
“With this initiative, hospital beds which are under-utilised can be used to reduce overcrowding at specialist hospitals.
“Patients can also be transferred to less-crowded hospitals within their respective clusters and appropriate placement of specialists will also be implemented in hospitals either permanently or on rotation,” he told the Dewan Rakyat yesterday.
Lee said this in reply to Datuk Ahmad Jazlan Yaakub (BN-Machang) who wanted to know the number of hospitals facing extremely high patient density and the steps taken by the ministry to tackle the problem.
Lee added that there were currently 25 cluster hospitals in 12 states, which made up 60.7 per cent of the 88 hospitals under the Health Ministry.
Of the 12 states, Melaka, Negeri Sembilan, Penang, Terengganu, Kelantan and Pahang had completed the implementation of the cluster hospital initiative.
“Sabah has created four cluster hospitals; Perak, Kedah and Sarawak two each; and Johor and Selangor one each,” Lee added. — Bernama