KOTA KINABALU: Sabah’s rural health care is set to receive a boost with the state government’s plan to introduce a floating clinic along the Kinabatangan river.
Sabah health director Dr Mohd Yusof Ibrahim said the plan was to introduce riverine mobile clinics and utilise ambulances which have been modified to meet local dirt roads to provide effective health services to rural people.
“The riverine mobile clinic will be the first of its kind. We are proposing for it to be based along Kinabatangan river. We estimate that during the week it can serve all the villages along the river before returning to base for the weekend,” he said.
Mohd Yusof said a draft proposal for the project was being prepared and it was expected to cost about RM500,000.
“The proposal will be submitted to the Health Ministry next month,” he said after flagging off 28 new ambulances including 10 designed to meet local road conditions.
He said the modified ambulances would be used for mobile clinic programmes, especially in areas where road conditions were bad.
“We need to increase the number of these mobile clinics to benefit those in the interior and rural areas,” he said.
