ONLY 34.1% of ambulance responses nationwide met the Health Ministry’s target response time for critical cases last year, says Datuk Seri Dr Dzulkefly Ahmad.
The Health Minister said this fell short of the 50% target for ambulance responses within 15 minutes for critical, life-threatening and priority cases.
He added that urgent measures were being taken to improve ambulance response times.
“Last year, our nationwide achievement for these cases stood only at 34.1%, which is below what we had set.
“The Health director-general and I are reviewing this matter rigorously,” he said during Ministers’ Question Time.
Dzulkefly said the ministry was also strengthening the NG-MERS 999 system and working to increase ambulance capacity.
“Procedures to improve ambulance activation and response times during emergencies are also being strengthened together with emergency specialists,” he said.
He was responding to Datuk Seri Jalaluddin Alias (BN-Jelebu), who asked about ambulance response times, particularly for road accidents.
Jalaluddin cited a recent incident in his constituency in which an accident victim had to wait almost an hour for an ambulance, despite the nearest healthcare facility being less than 500m away.
He also asked about measures to address disparities in access to doctors, specialists and diagnostic facilities between urban hospitals and health clinics in rural districts.
In his reply, Dzulkefly acknowledged the disparities, describing them as a systemic challenge.
He said measures are being taken to address the issue, including through the cluster hospital initiative and primary healthcare networks.
Under the cluster hospital initiative, hospitals within a specific geographical area, including lead hospitals in urban areas and non-lead district hospitals, share specialist expertise, medical equipment, diagnostic facilities and bed capacity, he added.
Besides the ministry’s outsourcing programme, selected surgical procedures and diagnostic tests are carried out at nearby private hospitals to improve access to healthcare in rural areas.
The initiative, he said, would shorten waiting times for rural patients requiring surgery and reduce treatment backlogs.
“Non-complex elective surgeries are also performed at district hospitals or hospitals with lower patient loads, with the deployment and support of specialists from the relevant disciplines.
“This enables rural patients to access surgical treatment more quickly,” he added.
Dzulkefly said the ministry also redeployed medical officers and specialists to rural facilities or hospitals with greater needs.
“Specialists, doctors and nurses are deployed across facilities through shared services, sessional deployment and rotational services to address staffing shortages at district hospitals without requiring new permanent placements.
“New or selected specialist services are also being established at district hospitals to broaden access to specialist care,” he said.
He added that staffing requirements were also planned at the cluster level, rather than separately for individual hospitals, to enable more systematic and realistic projections.
