KUALA LUMPUR – Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa has acknowledged the gravity of the situation faced by overwhelmed emergency departments in hospitals.
Dr Zaliha’s assurance that the ministry is taking steps to address the issue comes amid desperate warnings from healthcare activists, who claim that the continued neglect of the exhaustion suffered by medical staff could negatively impact the healthcare system.
In a Twitter post today, the minister promised to continue working on identifying solutions internally as well as during advocacy sessions for medical frontliners in ongoing discussions with the Finance Ministry.
What is being done?
— Dr.Zaliha Mustafa (@Zaliha_DrZ) February 6, 2023
- acknowledgement of the scale of the problem, as well as the physical & mental fatigue faced by staff & patients on the ground.
- internal discussion & direction regarding staffing & opening up of more beds.
- empowering leadership on the ground
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“Frontline staff (in hospitals) are struggling because patients who were supposed to be admitted were stuck in the emergency department. Delays in admission have an adverse domino effect,” she said.
She added that some of the measures being taken by her officers include confronting the scale of the problem, which includes the physical and mental fatigue experienced by medical personnel and patients.
“We will also hold internal discussions and (issue) directions regarding staffing and opening up more beds while also empowering leadership on the ground.
“Many issues are inherited and systematic, but some can be tackled at a local level with sufficient engagement,” she said.
The Sekijang MP also noted that many frontliners have worked beyond their call of duty during the Covid-19 pandemic and continued to do so as the nation faced a tsunami of non-communicable diseases post-pandemic.
In December, Dr Zaliha said that her ministry had begun drawing up plans to resolve the issue of overcrowding in emergency and trauma departments.
She said then that the ministry had been looking at all the latest data while conducting audits and research on workloads and overcrowding nationwide, especially in specialist hospitals.
The ministry had also been working consistently to address the issue by holding discussions and requesting funds and additional staff from the government to overcome lack of allocation and shortage of manpower, equipment, and infrastructure, she said.
She added that the overcrowding issue had also been reported in the Auditor-General’s Report 2018 published on June 24, 2019, which stated that the identified causes of congestion were insufficient allocations, shortages of health personnel, and lack of facilities to meet patients’ needs. – The Vibes, February 6, 2023
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