Liow: Extended hours for people to seek medical help nationwide

Star: KUALA LUMPUR: Sixty public health clinics throughout the country are now on extended hours for people to seek medical help after office hours.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the hours were extended from 5pm to 9.30pm on weekdays. They will also be open on Saturdays now, from 8am to noon.
“We started with extending the hour of 16 health clinics. This received good response from the rakyat. We then increased the number to 60 clinics nationwide this year,” he told reporters after launching Karnival Ampang Sihat here yesterday.
Following this, Liow said he had achieved one of his key performance indicators (KPIs) as the country's Health Minister after reaching the targeted number of clinics with extended hours.
However, he said the ministry needed to cover more ground as there were a total of 800 government health clinics in the country.
“We still need more manpower to cover the extra shifts. We are currently trying to implement this in stages.
“Should the people need certain clinics to be opened longer, they can inform the ministry,” said Liow.
He added that the ministry would be sending more nutritionists and dieticians to public health clinics to tackle the problem of obesity among the people.
On the medicine shortage at Malacca Hospital due to the ministry's alleged failure in releasing its yearly allocation, Liow said all ministry allocations have been distributed to hospitals.
“I have asked ministry officials to take serious action on those who delayed in ordering the stock of medicine. If such problems occur, it must be rectified as soon as possible,” he said.
On the increasing cost of treatment for non-communicable diseases (NCDs), Liow admitted that the costs would keep rising because of escalating prices of medicine and medical equipment.
“We need to curb NCDs at its root cause. The ministry has met with food manufacturers to discuss health aspects and conducted campaigns to increase public awareness in fighting NCDs,” he said.