Health staff for NS camps

Star: PUTRAJAYA: Each of the 81 national service camps will have four medical assistants and nurses stationed there starting from the Dec 29 intake.
Right now, there is none.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek said the move involved about 300 health personnel, to be loaned from public hospitals and clinics operating near the camps.
“The health personnel will be rotated on a three-month basis. They will be given a two-day course to expose them to the kinds of sicknesses or injuries trainees may incur.
“We have also recommended to the National Service Council that in the long-term, they should train health personnel of their own,” he told reporters after meeting council chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye here yesterday.
Dr Chua said it was decided that a sick trainee who did not recover after 24 hours be referred to the nearest hospital immediately.
As for placing doctors at these camps, he said there was no clinical justification to do so at present.
”The medical assistants and nurses are trained to take medical history and make diagnosis of simple complaints,” he said.
He added the mobilisation of these staff was not expected to stress the existing personnel or level of service at public hospitals and clinics.
“We have some 40,000 medical assistants and nurses throughout the country. Those placed at national camps will be entitled to the usual allowances,” he said.
The next intake for the 110,000 trainees will begin on Dec 29. Each camp has about 400 trainees at one time.
The programme had come under fire last year after several deaths involving trainees. As at May, there had been 12 fatal incidents.
He also reminded camp commandants and trainers not to smoke in front of their charges.
Lee said the council would bring up the proposal to train its own health personnel at a meeting with the National Service Department on Dec 13.
He reminded trainees to answer all 31 questions in the declaration of health status forms.
“This is compulsory. The forms will also have to be counter-signed by their parents,” he said, adding that only those who were fit would undergo the programme.