Hop on for a RM2 health screening

NST: KUALA LUMPUR: Don't forget to hop onto the National Kidney Foundation bus to get a health screening at only RM2.
The customised 40-seater bus, the first in Malaysia, provides for early detention and prevention of kidney disease through health screenings.
A team of eight, including a driver and a doctor, perform the health screenings and patients would be able to get the results immediately.
Patients could undergo urine, blood pressure, random blood glucose, random blood total cholesterol and body mass index tests, as well as counselling.
The NKF LifeCheck Mobile Health Screening Unit was launched yesterday by Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Ismail Merican, National Kidney Foundation board of directors chairman Dr S.S. Gill and Sunway Group founder and chairman Tan Sri Dr Jeffrey Cheah.
The mobile unit will operate five days a week in urban and suburban areas initially, with the aim to cover rural areas in the future.
Dr Ismail congratulated the Sunway group for its initiative in providing health screening and said he hoped more corporate leaders would follow the example, especially in other areas of health such as lungs and liver.
He said the focus of the mobile unit was to make Malaysians more accountable for their health.
"It is sad to end up with a disease which you could have prevented."
Dr Ismail said the number of kidney patients undergoing dialysis was now 14,647, five times more than a decade ago when the number was 2,922.
A member of the NKF board of managers, Goh Seng Chuan, said the mobile unit cost RM440,000 while manpower and equipment per year amounted to RM420,000.
He said the actual cost for a screening was RM35 but patients were only charged RM2 at the mobile unit parked at the Sunway Pryamid while here.