Health Ministry to look at reducing overcrowding at emergency depts
06 Feb 2023 04:11pm
Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustaffa
Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustaffa said it was detected after ministry officers conducted a visit last week.
She explained the influx was due to patients who were supposed to be placed in wards but were in the emergency department.
“Each emergency department faces different challenges. This was specifically different than the Klang Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital (HTAR) I visited previously.
“The staff were struggling as patients who should be admitted into the hospital were stuck in the emergency department causing a domino effect,” she said on her Twitter on Monday.
Zaliha said to prevent such problems the ministry was in the process of discussions and to have additional beds.
Zaliha acknowledged the physical and mental exhaustion among the staff and patients.
“Frontliners have worked off duty during the Covid-19 pandemic and continued to do so when we faced the wave of non-communicable diseases (NCDs),” she said.
Zaliha said the ministry has given their assurance to strive towards identifying the solution internally and support frontliners through continued discussions with the Finance Ministry.
The media previously reported that the Klang HTAR was forced to close its emergency department from receiving non-critical cases due to an influx of patients.
In January, the health ministry had said they would introduce a short stay ward for hospitals with room as an initiative to overcome the issue.
Zaliha said the initiative was implemented in several hospitals and suggested the ward to be improved to avoid patients especially those in the yellow zones from waiting for a long duration. - Awani
