Every weekday morning, a quiet crisis unfolds at the gateway to University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) in Petaling Jaya, Selangor.
Patients on crutches, expectant mothers, elderly folk pushing walkers, anxious visitors and even hospital staff and doctors can be seen dodging a relentless stream of vehicles along Jalan Profesor Diraja Ungku Aziz (formerly Jalan Universiti), to reach one of the country’s busiest hospitals.
They weave between parked cars and idling traffic, sprinting across lanes where the speed limit is largely ignored.
It is only a matter of time before this daily gamble ends in tragedy.
UMMC treats between 4,000 and 5,000 outpatients a day, accommodates a similar volume of visitors, and supports nearly 6,000 staff and around 2,000 students.
Yet it can offer only about 1,000 parking bays, according to the official portal.
The shortfall is staggering. Parked cars spill onto Jalan Profesor Diraja Ungku Aziz, into the surrounding commercial lots and into the adjacent Section 11, where residents and traders have pleaded for relief from illegal parking, dangerous U-turns and choked emergency access.
It is the most vulnerable who bear the heaviest cost.
Community leaders have described a trip to UMMC as a “parking nightmare” for seniors who are forced to either walk unsafe distances from distant bays or pay for ride-hailing services they can ill afford on a pensioner’s income.
When a frail patient weighs whether to brave four lanes of fast-moving traffic or to skip an appointment altogether, something has gone badly wrong.
Recently, CIDB Malaysia invited tenders to design, fabricate, supply, install and commission a pedestrian bridge and covered walkway connecting the Taman Midah MRT feeder facility to Cheras Rehabilitation Hospital.
The Cheras model is exactly what UMMC needs – a sheltered, accessible crossing that separates people from traffic, links public transport nodes to the hospital, and dignifies the journey of those already unwell.
I urge Petaling Jaya City Council (MBPJ) together with the relevant agencies, Road and Transport Department, the police and Health and Education ministries to act without further delay.
Two immediate steps are needed: First, MBPJ should commission a formal site safety audit of the pedestrian routes and crossing points serving UMMC, with the involvement of the hospital’s own patient-safety and accessibility officers.
The audit should catalogue near-misses, document pedestrian volumes and identify the highest-risk crossing points along Jalan Profesor Diraja Ungku Aziz and the connecting roads.
Second, the authorities should initiate a feasibility study for a covered pedestrian bridge linking UMMC to the nearest public transport nodes and overflow parking areas, modelled on the Cheras Rehabilitation Hospital project.
The study should include universal-design features, ramps, lifts, tactile paving, shade, lighting and closed-circuit TV cameras so that wheelchair users, the elderly and parents with prams are catered for.
A pedestrian bridge at UMMC is not a convenience. It is a life-safety intervention waiting for the political will to build it.
Let us not wait for a fatality to do what reason already demands.
RAVINDRAN RAMAN KUTTY
Kuala Lumpur
