Solution soon to bed woes

Star: KOTA KINABALU: The Health Ministry is expected to make a decision soon to address the acute hospital bed shortage situation in the city following the closure of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital main tower block.
The Chief Minister’s Assistant Minister, Datuk Edward Khoo, said ministry officials were looking at various available options in order to resolve the problem quickly.
“The Health Ministry is serious in wanting to address the situation,” he said when contacted yesterday.
Khoo was responding to a report in a local daily here which quoted a senior medical officer as saying the Bukit Padang hospital was “grossly under-utilised” with less than half of its 300 beds being used at any one time.
The officer, who was not identified in the report, also said the Bukit Padang hospital was in a strategic location and easily accessible to highly populated areas nearby such as Inanam and Luyang.
The officer had also dismissed a proposal to convert the disused Wisma Khidmat office block into a hospital as it had been built as a commercial office tower and was not suitable.
On another proposal for the Government to acquire the privately-owned 250-bed Sabah Medical Centre (SMC), the officer said this was insufficient as a general hospital would require a minimum of 500 beds.