Materia Medica Malaysiana

Old hospital too far from city centre – Najib

KUALA LUMPUR: Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the 95 Kinrara Armed Forces Hospital in Puchong, would be relocated as it is too far from the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) in Jalan Padang Tembak in the city centre.

Speaking to reporters in Bangkok where he is attending the 44th General Border Committee meeting, Najib, who is also Defence Minister, said the existing staff of the military hospital would be transferred to Mindef.

Meanwhile, a Mindef official confirmed that the hospital would be closed down "soon", and its facilities and staff transferred to a temporary polyclinic in Mindef.

He said the hospital was being closed as "the facilities are not up to standard".

The temporary polyclinic, he said, would be housed in the building currently occupied by the Science and Technology Research Institute of Defence (STRIDE) which will be moving to Kajang soon.

He also confirmed that work on the new military hospital, costing about RM200 million, near Taman Melati, Gombak, had been put on hold although land clearing work on the project had begun.

"The project was approved under the 8th Malaysia Plan but we have to put it on hold as no allocation was given," he said.

On claims that the land on which the Kinrara Hospital sits had been sold to a private developer, the official said there had been several proposals to develop the land.

"However, nothing has been approved or decided." The Malay Mail yesterday front-paged a report that millions of ringgit on highly-trained specialists skills and medical equipment were going to waste due to the impending closure of the Kinrara Hospital.

Several of the specialist clinics in the oldest military hospital are almost non-functional due to the premature phasing out of their services.

The talents of the highly-qualified specialists at the hospital, who were trained at between RM6 million and RM8 million per person, are going to waste as they are under-utilised due to the phasing out of the services.

This has affected the morale of the 180 hospital staff.

The premature closing of the hospital, scheduled for Aug 1, has also been questioned as the replacement hospital in Gombak will not be completed by June 2006 as scheduled.

This is because work on the new hospital came to a stop on May 1 due to funding problems.

The Malay Mail visited the site of the new hospital project and found that work had come to a standstill with an uncompleted building and some abandoned cabins.