BUKIT MERTAJAM – Bukit Tengah assemblyman Gooi Hsiao Leung called on Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to do everything within his power to help Penang cope with the medical emergency brought on by a resurgent Covid-19.
“I understand Khairy will be making a visit to Penang on Saturday and I hope he will be able to immediately address the many acute problems the state Health Department is facing in managing the upsurge of Covid-19 cases in recent weeks."
In a statement today, Gooi, who is also a state PKR leader, said that Penang currently has the highest rate of cases per 1,000 people in the country.
“For all intents and purposes, we are experiencing a statewide health emergency.
“Undoubtedly, our state’s biggest challenge is the serious shortage of manpower and resources in our hospitals, emergency call centre services, and those providing support for home quarantine patients and carrying out enforcement and contact tracing work,” he said.
Gooi pointed out that there are 70 government intensive care unit beds in Penang, 98.2% of which are currently occupied.
“Our doctors now have to make impossible decisions on who they can save and who they cannot as there are not enough ICU beds to place and treat them.
“From August to September, the number of Covid-19 patients being hospitalised has tripled from around 300-400 cases to almost 900 cases, peaking at 1,009 patients on September 5, with over 90.2% of our existing hospital beds currently occupied.
“Even if we were to increase our ICU and non-ICU beds, we do not have sufficient doctors and support medical staff to care for the additional patients,” he said.
In the past ten days, Gooi said, the number of Covid-19-positive people having to self-quarantine at home has increased exponentially from 7,687 to 22,417 people.
“The state Health Department’s Covid-19 assessment centres’ telephone hotlines provided to assist people, especially those under home quarantine, are utterly useless as these call centres are severely understaffed and calls are almost never answered, in addition to numerous complaints of patients having to wait for hours to call for an ambulance in many instances.
“Medical experts have repeatedly warned that the worst is yet to come for Penang, and critically, we must be prepared for all eventualities in the next two months.
“Many good proposals and suggestions have been put forward to the federal government, including the setting up of field ICUs and ordering private hospitals to take on more serious Covid-19 patients for treatment,” he added. – The Vibes, September 10, 2021
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