Easier access to healthcare for all

Star: SEGAMAT: Healthcare will be more accessible with the deployment of more mobile clinics around the country.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said the Cabinet had approved an additional 96 mobile clinics to the present 151.
He said the 96 would be introduced in stages over the next three years.
Dr Chua said that although the standard of healthcare in the country had improved considerably since independence, there were still those who did not have access to proper healthcare services, such as the rural folk and urban poor.
“In some urban areas, development was so rapid that there was no land for us to build polyclinics or community clinics.
“The scenario especially applies to older developments, where there was no provision for the developer to reserve land for clinics,” he said.
He added that the issue did not arise in new developments as developers now had to gazette land for public clinics in their plans.
Dr Chua said the 151 mobile clinics had a reach of 1.1 million people and treated about 100,000 patients last year.
“Each team consists of one doctor, one nurse or medical assistant and one pharmaceutical assistant. The mobile clinic is equipped with basic facilities and also a basic lab to conduct tests like urine samples,” he said.
He added that the mobile clinics would be more appealing to doctors who did not want to be based in rural areas.
“Doctors can go with the mobile clinics and travel from town to the rural areas and still get to go home (at the end of the trip),” Dr Chua told newsmen after launching Pharmaniaga’s mobile clinic in Labis, near here, yesterday.
The mobile clinic, part of Pharmaniaga’s corporate social responsibility programme, is a converted ambulance and will be manned by volunteer doctors and nurses from Mercy Malaysia.
Pharmaniaga chairman Datuk Mohamed Azman Yahya said that the mobile clinic would provide healthcare services free of charge.