Statement by Peter Liew Fui Ken in Tuaran, Sabah on Wednesday, 3^rd March 2010:

Tuaran Hospital has no sick bays and wards – no beds

During the Sabah DAP CNY open house recently held in Tuaran on the 27^th of February, a shocking complaint was brought to the attention of the DAP. This is about the Tuaran Hospital having no sick bays and wards for the patients, and in short the hospital has got “no beds”!

The complaint was found valid when today the Sabah DAP Chief Dr. Hiew King Cheu who is also the Kota Kinabalu Member of Parliament visited the hospital with his vice chairman cum the DAP bureau chief for Local government and housing Edward Ewol Mujie and me.

The Tuaran Hospital was officially opened in 1994 by the then Health Minister Lee Kim Sai, but until today the hospital is still in its original stage of having no beds for the patients. All patient here only be given first checking and then will have to be sent to QEH in KK for warding and further treatment. There is no medical operating theater and facilities, and all emergency cases can only treated and handled in KK. The 4 doctors here are only general practitioner (GP), and they can not cope with serious illness and emergency cases. The two ambulances are fully occupied in the transporting of patients from Tuaran Hospital to KK QE. If any one of these is broken down, then the people here will be in trouble. The cost of ferrying the patients is very high and in the case of time lost when caught in heavy traffic jam can bring along lives lost.

The Tuaran Hospital is set in the Tuaran District which needs to serve some 350,000 people in the area, and this shows how important the hospital is. It is highly illogical that this important and strategic hospital has no beds. An elderly woman at her 70’s approached me said she had indeed suffered enough of going to KK QE to see her grand son who was warded there. She has to take 5 buses and 4 hours to reach the KK QE, by the time she reached there and come back to Tuaran she herself is already half-dead. If there is hospital beds in Tuaran Hospital she will not suffer that much, and may be just take her one hour to reach to see her grand son.

KK MP Dr. Hiew will definitely bring up the “Tuaran Hospital with no beds” issue in the coming Parliament sitting in March. This is surely interesting to see how the BN people are going to reply.

* Peter Liew Fui Ken, Tuaran DAP Chief