MARUDI: The Marudi Hospital has the potential to be expanded through the Global Surgery (GSI) initiative, said Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
The Health director-general said this was because the hospital had an operating room facility that could perform elective and emergency operations.
However, he asserted that numerous factors, particularly in the hinterland of Sarawak, deterred his ministry from undertaking upgrading works and so on.
“There is no denying that there are constraints in terms of facilities and assets.
“These need to be improved so that surgical procedures can be carried out more effectively and safely in line with Global Surgery Initiative (GSI)’s goal to deliver an accessible, available, safe, timely and affordable surgical services,” he said in his Facebook post yesterday.
He has visited Marudi Hospital on GSI visit to hospitals in Sabah and Sarawak from Sept 22 to 25.
After Marudi, he went to visit Miri Hospital which was located 64 kilometres away.
During his four-day trip to East Malaysia, he visited Papar Hospital, Sipitang Hospital, Lawas Hospital, Limbang Hospital, Marudi Hospital and Miri Hospital.
He said the GSI and the Cluster Hospital approach is one of the Ministry of Health (MoH’s) main agendas in ensuring the delivery of surgical services and other medical services can be provided based on the principle of Universal Healthcare Coverage and the Equity to Proximity.
“The results of the visit have shown that these hospitals are in the implementation phase of Global Surgery where some medical officers trained in hospitals without specialists are given privileges in carrying out basic surgery and emergency surgery.
“Through this Global Surgery and Cluster Hospital initiatives, it can reduce referrals and congestion in specialist hospitals and most importantly the treatment provided located close to the community.
“The visit also showed that some hospitals are currently in the infrastructure upgrading phase, in preparation for increasing specialist services from basic services,” he added.
He asserted that a systematic plan is being developed to enable basic surgical services to be provided in non-specialist hospitals through continuous training and the upgrades of appropriate infrastructure and equipment.
The visit was also attended by heads of Services from General Surgery, Anaesthesiology, Orthopaedics as well as Obstetrics and Gynaecology besides officers from the Medical Development Division, Medical Programme, MoH and State Health Departments.
