KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 20 — The Kedah state health department (JKN) and Perlis state hospital Tuanku Fauziah Hospital (HTF) have posted alternative numbers for medical emergencies, signalling distrust in the new NG MERS 999 system.
Last Tuesday night, JKN Kedah listed on its Facebook page two numbers, 011-5899 1584 and 04-735 0136, as alternative numbers to 999 for medical emergencies across the state.
“For the meantime, besides the 999 hotline, you can contact these numbers if you need medical emergency assistance throughout the state of Kedah Darul Aman,” said JKN Kedah.
JKN Kedah’s poster of alternative emergency numbers was shared by the Facebook pages of state hospital, Sultanah Bahiyah Hospital in Alor Setar, as well as by numerous district hospitals and health offices under the Ministry of Health (MOH) in the state.
Yesterday morning, HTF posted on Facebook alternative numbers to 999 for medical emergencies in Perlis: 04-977 0333 and 04-973 8179. “Besides calling 999, you can call these direct numbers for medical emergency assistance in Perlis for the timebeing,” said the MOH hospital in Kangar.
JKN Perlis and multiple public health clinics (Klinik Kesihatan) in the state shared HTF’s notice on their Facebook pages.
Notably, the notices of alternative emergency numbers by JKN Kedah and HTF in the north were posted after a joint statement by MOH, the Communications Ministry, and Telekom Malaysia (TM) Berhad last Tuesday evening dismissed complaints with ambulance services under the new NG MERS 999 system as “isolated incidents”.
Yesterday morning, a person on Facebook complained that his 999 calls that morning weren’t answered, as he shared a screenshot of five outgoing calls to the national emergency number from 8.02am to 8.15am.
The man also posted a screenshot of a notice on his SaveMe 999 app that said: “Unable to process your report. For immediate assistance, please call 999 directly”.
In a statement yesterday morning, Senator Dr RA Lingeshwaran disputed the allegation by MOH, the Communications Ministry, and TM that problems with NG MERS 999 were “isolated incidents”, describing it instead as a “systemic problem”.
“An analysis of public sentiments shows a spike in negative complaints, consistent with the theme of system chaos. Ambulance workers nationwide have reported critical dispatch failures,” said Dr Lingeshwaran.
“There have been incidents where three ambulances were dispatched to the same incident location, causing resource wastage. On the other hand, there have also been incidents of ambulances being dispatched to the wrong district or address due to failures in the mapping integration of this new system.”
The DAP lawmaker demanded an immediate suspension of the new NG MERS 999 system and to revert to the old MERS 999 system, pending a thorough technical audit.
“We cannot allow people to die simply because the government wants to defend the premature deployment of a system.”
A person previously claimed on X that 999 operators had instructed them to download the new SaveMe 999 app when they called the emergency number.
