Miri Hospital’s facilities to be on par with SGH’s

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Aaron (second left) and Miri Hospital director Dr Jack Wong (left), being briefed on the progress of the new hospital project.

MIRI: The government plans to upgrade Miri Hospital’s facilities to be on par with those at Sarawak General Hospital in Kuching so that the former would be the medical hub for northern Sarawak.

Deputy Health Minister II Datuk Aaron Ago Dagang says Miri Hospital is currently the referral hospital for the region.

“It is one of the big hospitals and our goal is to make Miri the medical hub for northern Sarawak in many years to come as the medical facilities here are still far off from what they are supposed to be. We want it to be like the SGH in Kuching,” Aaron told reporters after visiting the construction site for the new Miri Hospital and Miri Polyclinic yesterday.

Aaron stressed that the region’s small population of about 500,000 should not be a hindrance to achieve this vision.

“We have a very small population, but people forget about the difficulties in transportation, especially from the remote areas in Limbang and Baram. These people depend on Miri Hospital and my mission today is looking at these facilities and also the issues arising from staff and ways to address them,” he said.

Aaron said one of the improvement measures taken was building the new Miri Hospital and its polyclinic adjacent to the existing hospital.

He noted that progress of the project was ahead of schedule, adding that groundworks for the construction kicked off in June.

The Kanowit MP said he was confident that upon its completion in October 2023, the RM289.2 million new hospital would ease congestion at the existing hospital here, which has only 349 beds.

The new seven-storey hospital would have 328 beds and facilities such as specialist clinics, labour rooms, operation theatres, accident and emergency department, pharmacies, and a medical store.