‘EVICTION’ DUE TO INSUFFICIENT BEDS AT QEH?

THE family of Nomie Pilok, an orthopedic patient of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) has taken the hospital to task for allegedly ‘evicting’ her from the Orthopedic Ward, due to insufficient hospital beds.

The 36-year-old trader cum single mother was admitted to the QEH on March 10, 2020 following a car accident in Kimanis, Papar. She was later diagnosed with conditions called “closed traumatic of BIS (Brain Injury Subscale) and inferior pubic rami”, which caused her to be ‘paralysed’ from the waist down. She was discharged from the hospital 10 days later, even though she still could not walk at all.

The doctor who attended to her had told her that it was not necessary for her to undergo operation, adding that her condition should recover within 5- 6 weeks. Her next appointment with the doctor is on 14 April, 2010.

When the reporters visited her at her uncle’s house in Kampung Kolopis, in Penampang today, she was still bed-ridden. The said visit was arranged by Sabah Progressive Party (SAPP) Information Chief, Chong Pit Fah and its Moyog vice chief, Florian Chong following an instruction from their Party president, Datuk Yong Teck Lee.

Nomie’s uncle, Ambrose had earlier sent out distressed plea for help via the SMS to several senior state politicians and Elected Representatives (YB) and Yong happened to be among them.

And Yong was the only one who responded positively, the rest of them (names withheld) who are so happened from the Barisan Nasional (BN) were either non-committal or just simply washed their hands by referring Ambrose to a senior medical officer (name withheld) of QEH who too failed to respond.

One of the YBs even straight away told Ambrose that he was unable to help after he found out that Ambrose is not from his constituency.

“Is this what the 1Malaysia slogan of “Rakyat Di Dahulukan, Pencapaian DiUtamakan” (People 1st. Performance Now) all about? The least that he (the YB concerned) could have done is to refer us to another YB who he thinks may be able to help us,” lamented an emotionally upset Ambrose.

He became even more emotional when talking about the manner his niece was treated by the QEH, which he described as irresponsible, inconsiderate, and inhumane to some extent.

“Not only that they (QEH) evicted her without any consideration for her condition, they also gave her some Paracetamol (painkiller) that only lasted for one week. And they even callously refused to allow us to borrow the wheelchair to wheel her to the car,” he charged.

He lamented that currently Nomie has to be attended to around the clock by family members by turns. This included attending to her mundane needs of answering the nature’s call. Unfortunately, she had to be carried downstairs every time such need arises since the toilet is located at downstairs.

Further describing Nomie’s ‘eviction’ as a blatant act of depriving her of her fundamental rights as a citizen to a free, decent and professional medical care, Ambrose fervently argued that the perennial-and-pressing issue of insufficient hospital beds facing the QEH should have been long resolved, if the relevant authorities were indeed sincere and committed to resolve the people’s plights all these while.

He was especially cheesed off when recalling all the fund-raising programs organized by the Government in aid of the people of some foreign countries that were caught in conflicts.

A visibly distressed Nomie when approached at her bed sighed that her present condition was worse than being dead, especially citing that she had to constantly endure great pains and often loses sleep at night, when the effect of the painkiller subsides.

"Now, all that i can do is lying here and gazing at the sky when i'm not sleeping," lamented Nomie who originally hailed from Tambunan.

Meanwhile, Pit Fah called on the Minister of Health, Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai to immediately start focusing on the plights of the Sabah people over the perennial and worsening healthcare crisis besieging the state.

“While I congratulate him (Liow) on his victory in the recent MCA party election, I urge him to pay urgent attention and to come up with concrete and effective measures to resolve the healthcare crisis in Sabah. Failing which, he should bow out gracefully and let others who are more qualified and capable, to take over his job,” he said.

Pit Fah who is also SAPP Kepayan chief also called on the others who had similar experience like Nomie to come forward to tell their stories, so that the Government would take their plight more seriously and to resolve the issue.

In addition to this, he also questioned over the provision of generic medicines instead of the original ones, by QEH to its patients of late, besides reducing their medicines supply from three months previously, to monthly now, which had caused great inconvenient to its patients especially the senior folks who are heavily depending on their children or relatives, to bring them to the hospital. Often, the patients were also told to get their own medicines from the private pharmacy as the hospital often runing out of medicines.

He claimed to have reliably learned about this from reliable sources from within the hospital.

He thus questioned whether the Government was in such a bad financial position now that it had to cut expenditure on the medicine supply for the government hospitals.

“Where have all the taxpayers’ monies gone to including those collected from the gaming activities?” he asked, noting that last year alone the Federal government collected a total of RM1.199 billion from the gaming taxes. -Sabahkini