Modern medical services a must for armed forces worldwide — Nazrin
KUALA LUMPUR: Medical and health services that are complete, high-tech and managed by trained experts are currently ‘a must’ for the armed forces worldwide to ensure combat strength, said the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Nazrin Shah.
He said that medical support services that were complete and modern would certainly provide psychological comfort to military personnel in the war zones.
“History has clearly proven that military medicine can help to change the war direction.
“War commanders who understand the importance of military medicine and ensure its modernisation in terms of equipment or specialist manpower, will certainly gain considerable benefits from it,” he said when opening the 2017 Malaysian Military Medical Conference at Wisma Perwira, here yesterday.
Sultan Nazrin, who is also Colonel-in- Chief of the Royal Medical Corps, said in most developed countries, they allocated considerable expenditure to develop, modernise and train their respective military medical teams besides giving high priority to military medicine.
He said military medicine also demanded that various new discoveries were made purely to save war victims on a large scale and to assist in saving and treating those who were severely wounded in the war.
“In one aspect, producers continue to invent more destructive weapons while in the other aspect, military medical practitioners must study, pioneer and produce formulae to save lives and to treat soldiers and members of the public injured by new destructive weapons,” the Sultan said.
Sultan Nazrin also said the field of military medicine was an expertise that was different, and not the same as public medical experts.
He said this was because military medical experience that pioneered several branches of medicines such as orthopaedics, plastic surgery, neurological surgery, prosthetics, and rehabilitative medicine, later transferred these benefits to public medicine involving the general public.
“Military medical advances have raised the rate of survival in war. The advances in medical evacuation, battlefield medicine and trauma care, had saved many lives during the war,” he said.
Referring to the medical conference which was held for the first time in conjunction with the 50th anniversary celebration of the establishment of the Royal Medical Corps, Sultan Nazrin said it was most relevant and must be given attention because it discussed various current health and medical issues.
His Royal Highness said among the major issues that must be given attention involved noncommunicable diseases or NCDs, encompassing diabetes, cancer, stroke, heart attacks, ailments related to breathing and the lungs which were on the rise.
“Sixty to 70 per cent of fatalities in Southeast Asia currently are due to NCDs, up 40 per cent from the data in 1990. In Malaysia, it was estimated that in the year 2015, 73 per cent of fatalities were due to NCDs compared with only 40 per cent in 1990,” he added.
The Sultan of Perak said the urbanisation factor had also raised numerous risks including work pressure, stress, pollution, smoking, unhealthy and unbalanced diet to the extent that many suffered from diabetes and obesity.
In this regard, he urged the Royal Medical Corps to draw up a relevant health programme including preventive measures to ensure that military personnel and members of their family adopted a healthy lifestyle.
Also present at the event was the Acting Armed Forces Chief who is also Air Force Chief Gen Datuk Seri Affendi Buang. — Bernama