Labuan Health Dept brushes aside claims on Labuan hospital services

LABUAN: The Labuan Health Department today brushed aside claims and accusations of the opposition in the island as outdated issues being politicised for political mileage.
The five issues involving the hospital, namely leaking roof; non-functional of air-conditioner; inadequate power supply; inadequate of parking lots and shortage of medical specialists was deliberately highlighted for political mileage.
Its director Dr Ismuni Bohari said contrary to the opposition's claim, the Labuan hospital services and facilities had improved tremendously.
"The Labuan hospital with a vision 'Labuan Pulau Sihat 2019' is equipped with necessary medical facilities and sufficient specialists to cater for the needs of the people on the island," he said in an explanatory statement to Bernama today.
On the leaking roof and non-functional of air-conditioning, he said, an allocation for the replacement of the roof and new air-conditioners had been approved and work is scheduled to be completed next month (October).

"On the claims of inadequate power supply, we must clarify here clearly that the power supply is currently adequate. Not only adequate, we also have taken steps to discuss with the Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) on the demand of power supply to the hospital for the next five to 20 years," he said.
Dr Ismuni also clarified the baseless allegation on the inadequate parking lots, saying that the parking lot at the hospital is sometimes underutilised following the parking lot expansion project completed December last year.
He said 13 specialists involving nine expertise fields - internal diseases, pediatric, obstetrics and gynaecology, surgery, orthopaedic, emergency, radiology, psychiatric, anaesthesia (Bius) – were attached to the hospital.
"We are fully aware of the situation in our hospital, and the issues highlighted by the opposition were outdated issues that have been and being resolved in stages," he said.
Labuan opposition PKR chief Simsudin Sidek made the claims on Wednesday, and said the Ministry of Health should provide a bigger allocation to the Labuan hospital to improve its services. — Bernama