KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 3 — Khairy Jamaluddin is scheduled to make a working trip next Monday to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, one of the states worst hit by Covid-19.
The health minister — together with Health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, Ministry of Health (MOH) secretary-general Mohd Shafiq Abdullah, and Sabah state health director Dr Rose Nani Mudin — is scheduled to visit the emergency and trauma, rehabilitation, and forensic departments, as well as a vaccination centre in Sabah’s main tertiary hospital on Monday afternoon.
The delegation will then visit Papar Hospital, according to Khairy’s work itinerary as sighted by CodeBlue.
As of yesterday, Covid-19 intensive care units (ICU) in Sabah hospitals were at 110 per cent over-capacity, while the state hospitals’ non-ICU bed capacity reached 89 per cent.
Sabah averaged at nearly 2,500 new Covid-19 cases and 32 fatalities daily over the past week from today. Of the 226 coronavirus-related deaths reported in the state over the past week, 92 victims, or a whopping 41 per cent, were brought-in-dead.
Last October, when Sabah was “Ground Zero” of the Malaysian epidemic with overwhelmed hospitals in Kota Kinabalu, Semporna, Tawau, and Sandakan, the state was reporting fewer than 1,000 Covid-19 infections and fewer than 10 deaths a day.
Kota Kinabalu MP Chan Foong Hin said earlier today that he has received complaints of insufficient ICU beds and oxygen supply in Sabah hospitals while morgues are backlogged, as doctors alleged preventable Covid-19 deaths.
The Malay Mail reported yesterday that Sabah hospitals are now prioritising younger patients for scarce ICU beds and ventilators, while some patients are forced to wait in the emergency department for more than five days.
