Sibu Hospital is taking aggressive steps to gradually overcome the parking problems at the hospital, its deputy director Dr Rachel Teng said.

She said the hospital received an allocation of RM500,000 from the federal government in 2022 to build an additional 125 parking spaces and the ongoing project is expected to be completed by September this year.

“Currently, Sibu Hospital has 424 public parking spaces while 336 parking spaces are reserved for medical personnel. With the completion of the new parking spaces, it should help to alleviate the parking woes to a certain extent,” she said in a press statement.

Teng concurred that the hospital had been plagued by the parking woes for years and had been working hard to solve the problem.

“However, we are limited by the lack of resources, especially the difficulty in finding a suitable site to expand the parking spaces.”

Dr Teng assured the hospital will continue to strengthen its management on the lack of parking woes and make necessary adjustments at any time to meet the needs of the actual situation so as to better serve the interests of the public.

In fact, Dr Teng said, the hospital has also planned to upgrade and set up some important clinics but could not do so, also due to lack of suitable sites.

After conducting analytical research, she said the problem of insufficient parking spaces in Sibu Hospital was due primarily to the rapid increase in the number of patients and family members thronging the hospital.

Insufficient parking spaces, she added, is a major problem faced by almost every major hospital, including Sibu Hospital.

She also said Sibu Jalan Lanang clinic and Jalan Oya polyclinic also faced acute parking problems.

“This is mainly due to the huge demand as patients and family members from all over the central region of Sarawak come here for treatment, hence crowding the hospital and the two clinics.”

Added to that, she said patients from the entire Rajang River Basin area are referred to Sibu Hospital for treatment, which has also gradually caused the hospital’s software and hardware facilities to gradually become overwhelmed.

Dr Teng said the plan for a multi-storey car park had been mooted earlier, including the plan to build a specialist clinic on the ground floor of the multi-storey car park.

“However, the idea was temporarily put on hold because the project would have involved millions of ringgit from government funding and the private sector also lacks the will to invest in such project.

“So in order to effectively alleviate the parking problems, we need to look at all the root causes,” she added.

Dr Teng suggested an effective way to solve the parking woes was to reduce the number of vehicles visiting the hospital and that would depend heavily on the cooperation from the public.

“Otherwise, no matter how many parking lots we increased, we will still not be able to solve the parking problems,” she said.

While the hospital is making efforts to solve the parking woes, Dr Teng also hoped that visitors to the hospital will also adopt an active and cooperative attitude and not park their cars at will.

“Do not park your cars at random at the hospital vicinity so as not to block the passage of emergency vehicles, especially ambulances which will cause inconveniences to the public.”

Source:
courtesy of THE BORNEO POST

by PHILIP WONG

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