Chong Chieng Jen
KUCHING: Democratic Action Party (DAP) Sarawak chairman Chong Chieng Jen has accused the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee of having no clue about the Ministry of Health’s (MoH) standard operating procedure (SOP) on the conditions for carrying out Covid-19 screening.
He said a recent live broadcast of the committee chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah Embas calling upon certain individuals who “are in close contact with those who have attended them (certain gatherings) to go to the nearest hospitals for the necessary health screening is in direct contradiction with the SOP of the MoH”.
These individuals were said to be those who have attended the the Sri Petaling Tabligh event, attendees at the Emmanuel Baptist Church, Good News Fellowship Church and the DAP dinner on March 7.
“The SOP of the MoH only provides health screening or Covid-19 screening for those who manifest clear symptoms of infection such as coughing, fever and difficulty in breathing,” he said in a statement today.
Chong said all those who were involved in the organising of the March 7 DAP dinner, about 50 of them, had upon being informed of Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii’s infection, been instructed to contact the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) for Covid-19 screening.
They were all advised by the SGH’s doctors to stay at home and do self-quarantine and self-monitoring and that they would only be required to report for screening if they had cough, developed fever and had difficulty in breathing, he pointed out.
According to him, all these have taken heed of the advice and practised home quarantine as instructed.
Even the organising chairman Michael Kong, who has coughing but no fever nor difficulty in breathing, was refused by SGH, who did not carry out a Covid-19 screening, he said.
“He was advised by SGH’s staff to stay at home, which he did,” said Chong.
Initially, private hospitals would carry out the tests despite a person having no symptoms, but as the supply of the test kits ran low, these private hospitals would only carry out the tests on those who had developed symptoms of Covid-19 infection, he noted.
Following Uggah’s statement, he said DAP members had called up Sarawak’s Covid-19 hotline number and requested for screening to be made.
However, they received the same reply: “Stay at home, only go for screening if you have coughing, fever and difficulty in breathing”, said Chong.
“Despite this clear SOP of the MoH, Uggah’s statement was asking everyone who ‘attended those gathering and those who were in close contact with those who attended the gathering’ (including family members) to go to hospitals to do health screening.
“The number referred to by Uggah is easily in the thousands and even tens of thousands. Uggah’s statement is a clear contradiction against the SOP of the MoH,” he explained.
He said Uggah’s statement would not only cause panic among the public but make it impossible for the SGH to do its job properly.
He said hundreds if not thousands would throng the SGH to demand Covid-19 test to be carried out on them as directed by the deputy chief minister.
He feared that this would further stretch the already very strained manpower and medical supply of the hospital.
“Will the SGH be prepared for the sudden influx of people doing Covid-19 tests? Will there be enough staff and medical supplies to address all these additional tests?
He hoped that the minister in-charge of disaster management would make consistent statements with the actual policies and measures implemented by the MOH.