Tenders for new buildings at Miri, Lawas hospitals to be called soon – Ling
Tenders are expected to be called for the construction of new buildings for Miri and Lawas hospitals by the first quarter of this year.
It is hoped that the projects would start soon to alleviate patient congestion as well as to upgrade the facilities in the hospitals, Senator Alan Ling said.
“In the 2019 Budget, the Pakatan Harapan ( PH) government has allocated nearly RM29 billion for the Ministry of Health (MoH), which is an increase of 7.8 per cent compared to the previous year.
“Some of the allocations would be channelled for construction of new buildings for two hospitals in the northern region of Sarawak, which are Miri Hospital and Lawas Hospital. For Miri, as far as I know, the project is already at pre- qualification proposal stage while another one in Lawas is in the midst of pre- qualification,” he told the media when met at the Home for The Aged in Krokop yesterday.
On the shortage of parking lots at Miri Hospital, Ling, who is also state DAP secretary, said he had already received a reply to his request from the ministry which said that it will work out a private-public initiative to build a parking complex to solve the parking problem.
At the same time, he hoped to hear some good news on the aspiration of the people to have a new public health centre for Miri.
He said the new public health centre project was needed to solve the patient congestion at the polyclinic and Mother and Child Health Clinic as well as to support the main role of Miri Hospital.
On another matter, Ling said he was happy that the PH government had introduced the national B40 Health Protection Fund which will benefit the targeted group with free medical scheme, adding this new policy which takes effect from this month will cover 36 critical illnesses.
Earlier, Pujut assemblyman Dr Ting Tiong Choon and Ling led a team from DAP Miri for a New Year visit to the Home for The Aged.
At the function, Dr Ting presented a grant of RM5,000 from the PH government to the home.
Besides that, the party donated some groceries to the home.