Khairy Refutes Claim Klinik Kesihatan Paya Jaras Turned Patients Away

Khairy Jamaluddin explains that patients with chronic conditions needing further treatment are diverted to Kota Damansara or Sungai Buloh because Klinik Kesihatan Paya Jaras lacks labs. He pledges a bigger clinic for Paya Jaras if elected as Sungai Buloh MP.

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 7 – The Paya Jaras public health clinic diverts patients only if they require more comprehensive treatment for chronic diseases that is not available at the decades’ old facility, Khairy Jamaluddin clarified today.

The Barisan Nasional (BN) candidate for Sungai Buloh and former health minister explained that Klinik Kesihatan Paya Jaras in the federal constituency was built in 1970 as a rural clinic, before it was upgraded as a public health clinic in 2015.

Although it can provide more services as a public health clinic than as a klinik desa, Paya Jaras was constructed for a population of 5,000 people. Paya Jaras’ population is now over 120,000 strong, 24 times larger than the government clinic was originally built for. 

“It’s not a question of this clinic sending patients away to other places or that it’s not taking in patients,” Khairy told reporters at Dataran Pasar Tani in Kampung Melayu Subang, Sungai Buloh.

“Patients with chronic conditions who need more comprehensive treatment – beyond basic treatment – cannot be seen as Klinik Kesihatan Paya Jaras because of [a lack of] facilities like laboratories and the like. That’s why we ask them to go to Klinik Kesihatan Kota Damansara, which is 8km away, or Klinik Kesihatan Sungai Buloh, 5km away.

“We don’t turn away patients. From the start, serious cases have indeed been referred elsewhere. If we can treat them, we don’t turn them away.”

Khairy said he plans to possibly look at a new site for the Paya Jaras public health clinic in the medium term, noting that it would be difficult to expand the current building due to its location at the side of the road. 

“If I am given the mandate to be a Member of Parliament and if Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri [Yaakob] is prime minister again – he had promised to reappoint me as health minister – it will be easier for me to build a bigger Klinik Kesihatan in Paya Jaras.”

CodeBlue reported Paya Jaras state assemblyman Mohd Khairuddin Othman as saying last night – when he stumped for Pakatan Harapan’s Sungai Buloh candidate Ramanan Ramakrishnan during a ceramah – that he has received multiple complaints from patients about the Paya Jaras public health clinic diverting them to other government clinics.

The state legislator from PKR cited the Kuang public health clinic, located more than 5km away, as one of the facilities that patients were diverted to.

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