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PETALING JAYA: Health Director General Tan Sri Dr. Noor Hisham Abdullah has reiterated calls for health volunteers to help the government fight Covid-19 in Sabah, saying the ministry needs more staff.
He said that in normal situations, the Ministry of Health had the right manpower to provide its services, but this is a time of crisis and Sabah has been registering an alarming number of new cases daily.
“We are in a crisis situation and in Sabah, we see an addition of new cases every day.
“In normal situations, we have the right workforce to provide services, but now we are in crisis.
“We need additional manpower to carry out health care activities in the low-risk quarantine and treatment centers in Sabah, as well as in the countryside,” he told a news conference on Friday (October 16).
So far, a total of 767 Health Ministry staff members of various categories in Sabah and also from other states had already mobilized to fight Covid-19 in the state, he said.
“This is the time for the ministry to get help from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). We are using the whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach.
“This is a war that we are facing, what is certain is that we must break the chain of transmission of Covid-19 in Sabah and throughout the country,” he said.
Sabah has 20 low-risk quarantine and treatment centers with a total of 4,231 beds that are currently 25% occupied.
There are also nine Covid-19 hospitals in Sabah with a total of 1,045 hospital beds currently at 76% occupancy.
The 122 beds in Sabah’s Covid-19 intensive care unit (ICU) are now 70% occupied, while the state’s 180 ventilators are 32% occupied.
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