KUCHING: Minister of Local Government and Housing Dato Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian is calling for the decentralisation of public health care in order to improve services, he told health news portal CodeBlue in an interview recently.
In the interview, Dr Sim, who is Sarawak United People’s Party (SUPP) president, said the inaccessibility and poor state of public health care in Sarawak is the reason why it should be decentralised.
He faulted the federal government for the current situation afflicting the sector in Sarawak which is under the purview of his ministry.
Even though health is a federal matter, the federal government has failed Sarawakians in many areas including health care, he lamented.
“That is why the Sarawak government has been negotiating for the federal government to return health autonomy to Sarawak,” he said yesterday when reacting to a comment by cancer activist Sew Boon Lui that only three private hospitals in Kuching have oncologists who deal with cancer prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
Sew, who is the Society for Cancer Awareness and Advocacy Kuching (SCAN) president, was quoted by CodeBlue saying that the majority of cancer patients in Sarawak would seek treatment at the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) while 10 to 20 per cent seek treatment at private hospitals, and that this imbalance caused a heavier workload for those at SGH.
Sew added that SGH is the only public hospital in the whole state to have an oncology department.
Dr Sim lamented that inaccessibility of health care in the rural areas was also the reason why rural folks in Sarawak did not want to go for follow-up medical visits and treatment.
Separately, Santubong MP Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said the federal government failed to emphasise on rural road infrastructure, resulting in Sarawakians still relying on riverine transport, and therefore causing Sarawak to not be able to make medical care regular.
Medical air service was also not made permanent and long term but only periodical like two-week intervals and that again was subjected to weather condition, he said when contacted yesterday.
“That is why the present state government is taking it upon themselves to develop infrastructures in rural Sarawak. With roads, 24-hour electricity and fresh treated water in place, the other facilities especially health care could easily follow,” he said.
Providing adequate health care in rural Sarawak, in particular, continues to be challenging for the state government because of issues involving infrastructure and communication, he pointed out, noting that the population in the state is largely scattered, with about 45 per cent of them living in longhouses, villages and settlements.
The federal government too has no response to why there is no alternative to the 1Malaysia Clinic (now known as Community Clinic) in the rural areas, thereby making the health care situation worse, added Wan Junaidi.
“For example, the Klinik 1Malaysia works well in urban and suburban parts of Peninsular Malaysia but could not be implemented in rural and suburban Sarawak.
“The federal government did not have an alternative to this clinic for rural and suburban Sarawak,” he said.
The former natural resources and environment minister added that until these issues are resolved once and for all, health care in Sarawak will remain in poor condition for a long time.
We would like to sincerely apologise to CodeBlue for not crediting their articles ‘KL Has Failed, Give Sarawak Health Autonomy, Say State Leaders’ and ‘Sarawakians Demand Public Cancer Centre, With Overburdened SGH, Few Doctors, Beds, Equipment’ unintentionally in our first publication of this article. We have since amended our article to better reflect CodeBlue’s initiative in pursuing better health care for Sarawak and the nation as a whole.