KOTA KINABALU: A piece of 10-acre land has been set aside for the building of a Sabah Heart Institute close to Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) here.
However, the construction of this Sabah Heart Institute is not yet planned for the near future as the focus is to upgrade the existing ward for heart-related cases at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital II, which has been operational since 2012.
Sabah Community Development and People’s Well-being Minister Datuk James Ratib (GRS-Sugut) said an RM80mil allocation, as recently announced by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, has been given for the upgrading of the existing heart centre.
The Sugut assemblyman said this during the state assembly question and answer session on Tuesday (July 9).
He said the existing heart centre is located at the 8th floor of HQE II, and the funds would be used to, among others, expand the emergency area, upgrade beds for heart patients, add on specialists, and possibly upgrade the operating theatre.
“For now, the operating theatre can only cater to up to four surgeries per day so with the upgrade, we hope to see up to 10 heart surgeries performed daily,” James said.
On a supplementary question from Datuk Dr Jaujan Sambakong (Warisan-Sulabayan) asking whether the HQE II will be renamed and its services changed to cater only to heart patients, he said the name will stay, and that the various medical services provided would remain.
“This remains until we have a new Sabah Heart Institute at the allocated 4.05ha piece of land near UMS, which was set aside by the state government recently,” he said.
Datuk Darell Leiking (Moyog-Warisan) wanted to know when the long-awaited Type 3 Moyog Health Clinic would commence works, seeing how overcrowded hospital wards were at present.
James said there is a slight delay in the commencement of the Type 3 Health Clinic in Moyog due to technical issues, among other matters.
He said monthly meetings were held to discuss related issues including matters pertaining to the Moyog Health Clinic and explained that at first, the works were taken over by the federal Works Ministry, but it had been returned to the state Public Works Department (JKR) to handle.
“This is why there is a slight delay in its implementation,” he said.
