KUCHING, January 26, 2022: The situation at the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH) is almost back to pre-Covid-19 pandemic, said Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian after he and another Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah have visited the hospital this morning.
He said during the Covid-19 pandemic a lot of hospital beds were used for Covid-19 patients while operations and surgeries for other non-Covid-19 patients were postponed.
“Now, these beds are being used for non-Covid-19 patients while the number of beds for Covid-19 patients have been reduced greatly.
Deputy Chief Ministers Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah (left) and Datuk Sri Dr Sim Kui Hian in a discussion with SGH director Dr Ngian Hie Ung during the visit to SGH.
“During the height of the pandemic, more than 70 ICU beds were used for Covid-19 patients and at the moment, only a few are left.
“So, there is no point to keep the ICU beds just for Covid-19 patients as it will deprive the other patients from using the beds after operations,” Dr Sim, who is also the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) adviser, said.
Uggah, who is also SDMC chairman, said the state government has donated RM1.3 million for the installation of 36 ventilation points at SGH, which are being used by non-Covid-19 patients.
“We were really short of ventilation points at one point during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic and that is why the state government had agreed to help the hospital to install the ventilation points,” he said.
He said the state government is also helping SGH to build the intensive care unit (ICU) facilities at the hospital’s parking area.
He added work on the facilities will start next month.
Uggah said once these facilities are completed, the number of ICU beds will increase and be ready for possible rise in the number of Covid-19 cases in future.
“What we are doing at the moment is preparing for the worse. At the moment the figures for the daily cases have remained low compared to the cases in September last year.
“We do hope that the figures will continue to remain low,” he said.
Uggah said one of the reasons for the visit to the hospital is that he wanted to know the number of Covid-19 patients being admitted and he was told that the number is very low which is in line with the number of cases that are being reported daily.
“In spite of that, I would like to caution the Chinese community who will be celebrating the Chinese New Year next week, that they should take note of the Covid-19 infection and it is still around and we have not won the war yet,” he said.
“Even though we have the state election last month, where people mingled among themselves, we followed the SOPs, and that is why we have low number of Covid-19 cases now,” he said.
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