NSCMH vice president Datuk Hon Choon Kim speaking to reporters at the medical centre. Also present were Mawar Medical Centre chairman Datin Chua Lay Ping (right) and NSCMH medical centre chief executive officer Prof Datuk Seri Dr K Sree Raman.
SEREMBAN: Some 400 dialysis patients can now heave a sigh of relief after a medical centre decided to take over 11 Mawar Haemodialysis Centres which were in danger of ceasing operations.
NSCMH vice-president Datuk Hon Choon Kim said apart from managing the centres located in several states, it would also pay the salaries of its 91 medical and non-medical staff.
"We have decided to take over the running of the 11 centres from today as we do not want the patients to be left in a lurch.
"We are doing this as part of our corporate social responsibility after being told that the centres had run into financial problems," he told reporters at the medical centre Tuesday (June 11).
Also present was Mawar Medical Centre chairman Datin Chua Lay Ping.
The 11 centres are located in Lukut, Bahau, Rantau, Kuala Pilah, Mantin (all in Negri Sembilan), Sepang and Seri Kembangan (both Selangor), Gemas and Yong Peng (Johor), Seputeh (Kuala Lumpur) and Tawau (Sabah).
Apart from the income earned by the centres, it costs about RM250,000 a month to run them.
Hon said NSCMH chairman Datuk Lee Tian Hock decided to help upon learning that the Mawar Haemodialysis Centre was facing internal problems.
The NSCMH, which also has its own dialysis centre, had taken in 50 dialysis patients from Mawar after it ran into problems in February this year.
"When we took in the 50 patients, we had to invest in new dialysis machines and get our medical staff to work three shifts instead of two," he said.
Chua later thanked Lee for the gesture, adding that the management had run out of funds to manage the 11 centres.
She said Mawar's two other centres in Sarawak would be taken over by local non-governmental organisations.
The Health Ministry decided to seal the premises that houses both the Mawar Medical Centre (MMC) and the Mawar Haemodialysis Centre in Seremban on Feb 14 after the management had informed its dialysis patients two weeks earlier that the facility would be shut down.
The ministry moved in after the management wrote in to say it no longer had the funds to provide treatment or to pay its staff.
The Mawar Haemodialysis Centre, which is a non-profit organisation, also owns the MMC.
In November 2018, the ministry had ordered the MMC to cease operations after all but one of its specialists resigned.
Although it was given two months to sort out its licensing issues, the management failed to comply and its licence was revoked.
