KUCHING, Sept 7 — There is a need for the government to increase the allocation for expenditure in the country’s health system, said Senator Robert Lau Hui Yew.

He said this is in view of the Covid-19 pandemic which has greatly impacted the society and the health sector.

"Under this sector, towns and villages in Sarawak and Sabah are in desperate need of better health facilities as there are significant differences in terms of investment and facilities in Peninsular Malaysia compared to the East Malaysian states,” he said when debating the motion of thanks for the royal address by the Yang Di-Pertuan Agong at the Dewan Negara session in Kuala Lumpur today.

He pointed out that Sarawak also faced a similar problem with its hospital workforce.

"Recently, there were 102 permanent medical officer positions available at hospitals in the state. However, less than 10 per cent of these positions have been offered to Sarawakian medical officers.

"A total of 30 medical officers from Peninsular Malaysia who were offered the permanent positions rejected the offer but these posts were not offered to the Sarawakian medical officers."

"Instead, they were later offered to other medical officers from Peninsular Malaysia,” he said.

He also said that 39 per cent of health clinics in the state do not have medical officers and these clinics were located in the interiors.

"A total of 152 out of 216 clinics (70.7 per cent) are not equipped with laboratories and 192 out of 216 community clinics (90 per cent) do not offer x-ray services,” he added.

He also mentioned that only seven per cent of Malaysia’s doctors serve in Sarawak.

"Overall, the ‘doctor:population’ ratio in Sarawak is 1:892 and if we were to make comparisons through divisions, Kuching is 1:604; Kapit is 1:1,721 and Mukah is 1:2,038 whereas in Klang Valley, the ratio is 1:150,” he said.

Lau said under public health, critical positions that need to be filled up in Sarawak are that of family medicine specialists (FMS).

"In Betong and Mukah, there are not a single FMS available and this situation occurs because most of the FMS are from Peninsular Malaysia and there are few local FMS,” he said.

He added that for the medical division, the critical areas of expertise are dermatology, urology, cardio-thoracic, neurosurgeons, plastic surgeons and forensics. — Borneo Post