Yes, we need more hospitals in and around Kota Kinabalu (K. K.) area.
Being a State capital, we must have the best hospital in K. K. handling all the elevated medical cases throughout the state, not mentioning that currently the Queen Elizabeth hospital (QEH) is also taking care of the needs of Labuan F.T., and Lawas & Miri from Sarawak.
Money for QEH should be readily available for the Twin Tower block that will provide 400 more beds!
Building more hospitals or upgrading the services in the surrounding areas such as Penampang and Papar districts should be placed as high priority in the government's development agenda in view of the background that the present infrastructure and services had not been matched with the development pace of Kota Kinabalu in the past 20 years.
The 'sudden' lost of the main tower block of QEH in November, 2008 virtually 'crippled' the medical services of the state, however, the situation turned slightly better with the facility then 'acquired' from Sabah Medical Centre; and subsequently, the purchase of the entire SMC building which is now renamed as Hospital Queen Elizabeth II.
The 'immediate' available of additional general hospitals in the near K.K. area such as Kinarut, or Penampang, or Bukit Padang, should relieve the growing pressure of QEH which should now focus more on the 'specialist' cases, or higher level of medical services.
The 10th Malaysia Plan however will start only from January, 2011 which is about 10 months away. In view of the urgency in Sabah, the government led by PM Najib, shouldn't wait for the
10th Malaysia Plan to implement; as these hospitals and medical facilities should have had been in place years ago.
Apart from the hardware, the medical services just like any other services in the state, suffers from the manpower problem, that it's also equally urgent to be resolved immediately; otherwise, the problems remain.
'Sugar is harmful to your health'; as every ones in the health business, especially the Health Ministry,been telling people to use less sugar in their daily food consumption, how many people take heed? It's very unfortunate that people in this country consume much higher than the norm or recommended dosage of sugar a day - Malaysian consume twenty six (26) teaspoons of sugar a day compared to the recommended seven(7) teaspoons; and it's almost four (4) times more than recommended!
Excessive consumption of sugar is the main cause of obesity which is the 'mother of all diseases' like high blood pressure, diabetes, renal kidney failure, and others. Bearing in mind that the highest common killer in Malaysian death is heart attack which has close linkage to the food and living life style. And, it's becoming a worrying state as the patients become younger!
The importance of the sugar matter is critically obvious.
The move by Datuk Rosnah to persuade the food and beverage industry to work together to reduce sugar consumption has two advantages: one is for the benefit of the people, and the other advantage is to reduce the sugar subsidy our country has to bear which is in the tune of almost RM1Billion a year! On top of that, we ought to take into account the expenditures or costs to provide the medical services that are required to take care of those patients caused directly or indirectly by the 'sugar' related diseases.
In order to see result of the efforts, the Health ministry must work closely with the Education Ministry in this campaign to reduce the sugar maniac in the society. It has to start young and people must be aware of the harms caused by abusive consumption of sugar ignorantly.
Of course, the effects of the price hike must be carefully monitored as the news clip attached already indicates the 'woes' or fears that the society will have to face.
Government must find a long term ways to increase the income of the people in order to resolve 'permanently' the social /cum welfare problems inflicted by the changes in the government partial withdrawal of sugar subsidy.
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