Schooling in hospital
> Penang Maternity Hospital to be upgraded to cater to young patients’ educational needs
GEORGE TOWN: Penang will have its firstever school in hospital once the rebuilding and upgrading of Penang Maternity Hospital, which will include a women’s and children’s block, is completed.
Deputy Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya said the maternity hospital had been closed down since December 2014 and the upgrading project is expected to be completed by March 2017.
The school-in-hospital initiative will be a collaboration between the Health Ministry and the Education Ministry, using the current school syllabus.
“This is the first school in hospital and it will have teachers and will be equipped with the relevant facilities. We hope that with this effort, they (young patients) will not be left out in their studies,” he said.
A similar effort was implemented in Kuala Lumpur Hospital and the response has been positive from the patients and parents.
The open tender for the upgrading of Penang Maternity Hospital will be issued this month.
The Economic Planning Unit had approved RM250 million for rebuilding and upgrading of the hospital which will include inpatient and outpatient wards.
After the upgrade, the hospital will have 329 beds compared with only 210 beds previously, Bernama reports.
Earlier, Penang Hospital received a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine and an angiogram machine from the ministry which cost RM7 million and RM11.386 million respectively.
Since the MRI service was introduced by the hospital in 2002, more than 30,000 patients have undergone MRI scanning.