Saturday, November 17, 2012

Public-private partnership to improve facilities at Sarawak General Hospital

The Star Online

KUCHING: The Government has approved a project under public-private partnership (PPP) programme to improve facilities at Sarawak General Hospital (SGH).
Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said the programme would involve building, among other things, multi-storey car parks, daycare centre, pathology laboratory, medical apartment, and a blood bank at a total cost exceeding RM300mil.
“The most important is the multi-storey car parks due to the congestion in the hospital compound. The project tender will be called soon.
“As for the cost breakdown for each project, it has not been ascertained yet,” he told reporters after a working visit to SGH yesterday.
He said the programme was a priority under Budget 2013 which had allocated RM193mil for 35 approved healthcare development projects in the state next year.
“A lot of these projects including clinics under the Budget are already going on as they are under the rolling plan,” he said.
Under the Budget, the Government had approved an allocation of RM1.9bil for 257 projects nationwide.
Besides these projects, Liow also revealed that a RM35mil clinical research centre and a RM3mil acute psychiatric ward at SGH would be ready by next year.
The RM32mil Petra Jaya Health Clinic and a new RM5.5mil state-of-the-art mortuary with a good forensic service will also be ready by the end of the year.
Liow said the services at the SGH would be further enhanced with additional beds, with two vacant floors at the SGH Heart Institute in Kota Samarahan to be used for the purpose.
“The hospital has seen an improved performance as the number of beds has increased to 934 now compared to about 700 in 2009,” he said.
He said the Government had never neglected the healthcare services in the state.
“We have a lot of clinics here with eight more 1Malaysia Clinics to be built in the state next year.
“We also have the mobile clinics and flying doctor services.
“There will be more doctors to be sent here as there are 3,500 newly trained doctors every year,” he said.
He said doctors posted to the state were encouraged to serve in rural areas as it was a national call that they should take up.
“We give them incentives and promotional opportunities after two years of service and we have even shortened the period to six months for the specialists.
“In fact, a lot of these doctors have stayed back after that and some are even willing to serve in rural areas,” he said.
On a question about hospital security, he said money had been allocated to it.

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