Kota Kinabalu: Sabah DAP on Wednesday said Tenom Hospital is seriously in need of doctors and medical assistants.Member of Parliament, Hiew King Cheu said the people there brought this up with the Sabah DAP team during the team's visit to the interior on Feb 6.
He said on that day they discovered that the hospital's only doctor was on leave.
"There was only one medical assistant (MA) attending to some 50 patients in the outpatient room.
"It was 11.30am and the MA had managed to see only 18 patients and there were many still waiting for their turn to see him," he said.
He said some of the patients told him that they waited since early morning to see the medical assistant.
He said it so happened that there was a man with a gunshot wound admitted into the emergency ward on that day but there was no doctor to attend to him.
The bullet, Hiew said, pierced through the patient's left shoulder and arm and that he was bleeding very badly.
According to him, the patient was later rushed to Keningau General Hospital by ambulance for treatment.
To make matters worse, he said there were only two serviceable ambulances in the hospital while the third was out of order and pending repair.
"This standard of emergency ambulance service is not acceptable because in Tenom there are about 100,000 people over a very huge and remote area," he said.
Hiew said he is very disappointed with the Ministry of Health for being unable to provide more doctors to serve in the Tenom Hospital.
"We all know that in Sabah there is a lack of about 2,000 doctors and this is just a typical case," he said.
He said the Health Minister should pay more attention to situations in all hospitals, clinics, polyclinics in Sabah particularly in the interior.
With regards to Tenom Hospital, Hiew said the Ministry should immediately send two more medical doctors and one medical assistant there.
"The equipment in the hospital must also be improved.
This is to avoid patients from being sent to the Keningau Hospital so as to prevent agony, wasting of time and loss of lives," he said.
