JOHOR BARU: Johor is pressing the SOS button for more doctors and nurses to address severe manpower shortage at Hospital Sultanah Aminah (HSA).<\/p>\n
State health and environment committee chairman Ling Tian Soon said HSA is currently operating with about 4,800 healthcare workers and 1,203 beds, a caseload comparable to that of Hospital Kuala Lumpur (HKL).<\/p>\n
\u201cBut HKL has about 10,000 staff, more than double that of HSA. Our work is no less than HKL in terms of cases, but in terms of doctors and staff we have much fewer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHSA\u2019s manpower positions still follow the old model. The ratio just does not tally,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Ling pointed out that HSA\u2019s specialist polyclinics attended to more than 2,000 patients daily, while its emergency and trauma department handled over 300 cases.<\/p>\n
On average annually, the hospital records more than 85,700 admissions.<\/p>\n
The exco member said the uneven distribution of manpower left HSA overstretched as it also served as a referral centre for the southern region, receiving cases from Melaka, Negri Sembilan and Pahang.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a fairly uneven distribution,\u201d he said, adding that HKL\u2019s emergency unit has about 110 medical officers, while HSA has only 40 to 50.<\/p>\n
The Johor government recently submitted an appeal to the Health Ministry for more than 2,000 additional healthcare workers for HSA, he revealed.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ministry should send more people here to tackle the lack of staff,\u201d he said, adding that Singapore is a strong pull factor for healthcare workers in the state due to the stronger dollar.<\/p>\n
Ling said the Johor government started an incentive payment of RM100 for healthcare workers and increased it to RM500 this year to motivate them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe state is also exploring housing rental subsidies and other initiatives,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
A recent report by a portal claimed that HSA was operating beyond safe and sustainable limits, placing medical officers, and ultimately patients, at risk.<\/p>\n
On a brighter note, Ling said a RM142mil upgrading project at HSA is progressing, with major ward renovations to complete soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWork on operating theatres are being planned carefully to avoid disrupting critical surgeries,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
He said the most challenging component involved the middle two floors of the block, where 12 operating theatres are located.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese operating rooms cannot be interrupted. The wiring systems are very old…the whole system could trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo avoid disruption, the state is applying to build three temporary operating theatres that can be used while several existing operating theatres are closed during renovation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Ling said the project, which commenced in 2023, is expected to be fully completed next year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt present, upgrades to HSA\u2019s fifth floor general wards have been completed, while Level Four is also done and due for handover soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe ground floor upgrades have been completed, with the pharmacy and revenue unit to be temporarily relocated there to facilitate operations,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Ling said the neonatal intensive care unit adjacent to the upgraded wards has been reopened in stages.<\/p>\n
A total of 124 beds were affected under the upgrading plan.<\/p>\n
The upgrading of the emergency and trauma department is also almost completed, he said, adding that the state government has allocated RM163,000 to improve facilities for green zone cases.<\/p>\n
This is to replace the previous fever clinic waiting area where patients had to sit under the sun.<\/p>\n
Ling said the upgrading of normal wards is expected to be completed this year, while the first-class and royal wards are still undergoing final touch-ups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JOHOR BARU: Johor is pressing the SOS button for more doctors and nurses to address severe manpower shortage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[275],"tags":[18,135,475,474,172887,16872,19,17,46048,172888,172889,134479],"class_list":["post-374805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-hospital-sultanah-aminah","tag-hsa","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ling-tian-soon","tag-manpower-shortage","tag-patient-load","tag-public-healthcare"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116195513119532423","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}