KUALA LUMPUR, March 21 — The Health Ministry (MOH) will submit a list of dilapidated clinics to the Finance Ministry (MOF) soon to obtain allocation to restore those facilities immediately.
Its minister, Dr Zaliha Mustafa said she understood the need to upgrade over 400 existing dilapidated facilities in the country.
“Therefore, we don’t choose between government or opposition constituencies….we should remember that healthcare services are apolitical, so we must attend to dilapidated areas no matter the political situation or the area,” she said during the committee-level wind up session of the debate on the Supply Bill 2023 for her ministry at the Dewan Rakyat today.
In reply to an interjection by Azli Yusof (PH-Shah Alam) on the need for parking spaces at public healthcare facilities, she said that her ministry was looking into it and examining several approaches to resolve the issue.
She said there were several methods that could be implemented to improve the parking situation, including asking the hospital director or state director to identify areas where it could be built.
“There are hospitals that can build parking spaces at an area that is further from the hospital, if they have identified such areas, we will prepare shuttle buses to ferry patients from such areas.
“For instance, I have discussed with the Selayang MP (William Leong) about preparing parking spaces in the stadium within the hospital’s vicinity and using shuttle buses to bring patients to the hospital. We have also identified multi-storey parking lots for healthcare facilities and we have to consider the budget,” she added.
The Dewan Rakyat then approved RM31.5 billion for the ministry under the Budget 2023 at the committee level with a majority vote.
