KAPIT, Jan 16 – Sarawak needs special attention and planning from the Federal government on the provision of dialysis services for patients in rural areas, said Deputy Health Minister Datuk Lukanisman Awang Sauni.
He said this is because there is currently no private sector service available for dialysis in rural areas.
Taking Kapit Hospital as an example, he said there are patients forced to seek dialysis at the faraway Song health clinic due to the lack of space and number of dialysis machines available at the hospital.
There are 64 patients needing dialysis in Kapit but that number is too many for Kapit Hospital’s dialysis unit to handle, causing 12 to 20 of them to be sent to Song clinic which is located about 52 km from Kapit to undergo dialysis.
“Some of them get dialysis outside Kapit Division while Song health clinic itself has 30 patients needing it,” he said after a visit to Song clinic on Monday.
The installation of additional machines could not be done due to insufficient space and to provide a larger space, allocation of development funds is needed for that purpose.
“Preliminary planning needs to be done so that there is a special provision if the project is listed under the 2025 Budget. We need to look at the development of Kapit Hospital as a whole and not just developing it bit by bit but to make it a complete hospital with minor specialists,” he said, adding that the lack of dialysis machines outside cities was also raised in other areas he visited such as Sri Aman, Serian, Bintulu and Miri.
Meanwhile, he said Sarawak has been allocated RM19 million to upgrade health clinics under the Bitara MADANI programme this year and of that figure, RM2.7 million will be used to upgrade six health clinics in Kapit Division.
“The clinics are in Nanga Ibau, Nanga Bena, Nanga Tekalit, Nanga Bangkit, Long Busang and Nanga Melinau,” he said, adding that the Nanga Sekeruh health clinic was upgraded last year under the same allocation.
