KUCHING, Jan 30 ― State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) chairman Datuk Amar Douglas Uggah said yesterday that Sarawak is comfortable with facilities at various hospitals for Covid-19 treatment.
“At the moment, we are still comfortable and we pray that our cases will not increase. We are also asking divisional health offices to assess the situation so that we can better curb the spread of infections,” he said in response to a question during the daily update press conference here.
Uggah said the state is aware of the need to increase the capacity of various hospitals throughout Sarawak including screening.
The state has increased the capacity to conduct screening from 2,500 to 5,000 tests daily.
“We are aware that the number of positive cases is increasing and our hospital capacity is overrun. Hence, we have appealed to Kuala Lumpur to upgrade our hospitals to hybrid or increase the number of beds.
“Some of the requests are in process and we have now low-risk quarantine centres at all divisions to meet the increasing needs,” he added.
Last Saturday, adviser to SDMC Datuk Seri Dr Sim Kui Hian said the Ministry of Health (MoH) had set aside urgent funds totalling RM57 million for upgrade of facilities and intensive care unit (ICU) beds for government hospitals in Sarawak following the recent surge of Covid-19 cases.
The Local Government and Housing minister said RM21 million of the total was for upgrade of facilities and equipment as well as reagents for various laboratories of government hospitals across the state.
“Another RM36 million is for additional 29 ICU beds and accessories equipment for government hospitals in Sibu, Bintulu, Miri and Limbang,” he said.
Dr Sim also said the Sarawak government had also set aside urgent funds of RM1 million each for Limbang and Kapit to enable these two divisions to carry out polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests at their respective local hospitals. ― Borneo Post