Remember your promise to explain high brought-in-dead cases, Kit Siang tells Khairy

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 10 — Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin must keep his word to provide a detailed explanation for the increasing number of brought-in-dead (BID) Covid-19 cases, DAP lawmaker Lim Kit Siang said today.

The Iskandar Puteri MP said Malaysians deserve to know why BID cases are increasing even as he welcomed Khairy’s initiative to provide better Covid-19 data via the CovidNow website and to transfer Category Three patients for treatment at quarantine centres.

“The high BID Covid-19 deaths were basically an August phenomenon, as in July there were some 599 BID Covid-19 deaths which tripled in August to over 1,600 cases.

“In the first 10 days of Khairy as the new health minister, the Health Ministry reported 876 BID Covid-19 deaths, which is more than thrice the total number of BID Covid-19 deaths in the first 10 days of August,” Lim said in a statement.

Khairy was sworn in as health minister on August 30, along with the rest of the Cabinet now led by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

“Now, Khairy says that these BID Covid-19 figures are a serious under-estimate and this is the reason why Malaysians are expecting Khairy to give the full and true picture and the reason why I have asked how many corpses are in the hospitals, giving state-by-state figures, which are not recorded in the Ministry of Health data on Covid-19 because they are awaiting Covid-19 tests,” Lim added.

The Opposition MP also pointed out that currently, BID cases represent 17.5 per cent or 3,417 out of the cumulative 19,486 deaths.

He said this is a worrying situation and that Khairy, in his capacity as the health minister, must take urgent measures to address the issue.

“Khairy must take urgent measures to cut down the high BID Covid-19 figures, and I welcome his decision that all Category Three Covid-19 patients be sent to quarantine centres along with the high-risk in Category Two cases,” he said.

During a recent working visit to Sabah, which has also seen a sharp increase in cases, Khairy said the high BID cases were the result of a huge backlog of deaths reported to hospitals that needed to be investigated first to see if they were actually caused by Covid-19 or other reasons.

The minister noted that those BID cases that were caused by Covid-19 were later found out to have been patients under home quarantine and were not taken to the hospital as soon as their condition deteriorated.