Field hospital to be set up at Hospital Sibu for non-Covid patients

SIBU: A new field hospital will be set up in the next two weeks at Hospital Sibu to accommodate non-Covid-19 patients, says Dr Annuar Rapaee.

The state's Education, Science, and Technological Research Assistant Minister said the Armed Forces has identified a site for the field hospital which would have a capacity of 100 beds.

"When non-Covid patients are about to be discharged from the hospital while waiting for their medical results, they will be transferred to the field hospital first," he said during a visit to the Covid-19 vaccination centre at the Civic Centre here on Monday (Sept 27).

He said the field hospital is strategically located for the convenience of both the patients and healthcare workers of Hospital Sibu.

On the vaccination centre, Dr Annuar said it is able to vaccinate 3,000 students in Primary Six and Form One in Sibu. The programme is set to run for five days.

On the setting up of 10 modular beds in the hospital that would be ready for use from Oct 5, Dr Annuar said it was to ensure that there would be enough beds if Covid-19 cases spiked.

"If there are not enough beds, people might have to wait. We don't want that to happen, so people might ask why we need to increase the beds when our Category Three to Five cases are at a (low) level.

"We are actually preparing for the worst. We increase the capacity of the hospital and ICU beds as we need to plan to avoid (overcrowding)," he said.

Separately, Dr Annuar said the Sibu Division Covid-19 Immunisation Task Force (CITF) would start administering booster shots of the vaccine from October.

"The recipients of the booster dose will be the same vulnerable groups of people who were the first to receive the vaccine in February. They comprise individuals above 60 years old with comorbidities, and frontliners," he said.

On the 140 teachers who had rejected the vaccine, he said the state Education Department would counsel them.

"Some are very firm due to personal opinion and we can't force them. Some are still undecided and we think we can convince them to take the vaccine," he said.