First shipment of 28 ICU beds from China arrives in Malaysia

PETALING JAYA: The first shipment of 28 ICU beds, specially ordered from China, has arrived in Malaysia and since been distributed to government hospitals, says Datuk Seri Dr Wee Ka Siong.

The Transport Minister said 100 beds were ordered from Pukang Medical Equipment, the largest medical equipment manufacturer in Hebei, China.

He said the task of bringing in 100 ICU beds was not easy and three planes had to be deployed to transport the beds – each weighing 250kg – back home.

“As the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) had barred entry of foreigners into the country, the Transport Ministry had to specially appeal to CAAC to allow Teleport – the logistics and cargo arm of AirAsia – to fly to Tianjin and Beijing to transport the 100 beds back to Malaysia in stages.

“In the end, CAAC allowed AirAsia’s Airbus A330 to fly to Tianjin to transport 28 ICU beds, as the size of such beds are too big and reached the maximum capacity of the planes, ” he said in a Facebook post on Monday (April 6).

The Ayer Hitam MP said the government is waiting for the green light from CAAC to for another AirAsia flight to transport the remaining 72 ICU beds as soon as possible.

He added that many countries such as Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States are also importing beds from China.

He also thanked Yayasan Petronas for their generous donation in contributing 100 electric ICU beds to the Health Ministry to treat Covid-19 patients.

“The ICU beds are a great help to save the lives of the patients who need it.

“Thank you to Yayasan Petronas, Teleport, AirAsia Kargo, the Chinese Embassy in Malaysia and Wisma Putra who facilitated the transport of the ICU beds, ” he said.