Clinic with no doctor, bus terminal with no bus

SEMENYIH POLLS

 | Driving away from the town area of Semenyih and heading to the northern part of the hilly constituency, a small clinic can be seen along the road.

The gate was slightly open, but the door was closed and it looked like the clinic was shut, until the door opens from inside. 

Nabilah (not her real name) said she heard some movement outside and decided to check what the noise was.

“All the villagers here know that the clinic is not open today, so I thought that some bad guys were coming in when I heard noises outside,” she told the reporter after she was told about the purpose of visit.

Nabilah is the only full-time staff member in the small clinic and she has been a nurse for 15 years since she graduated. 

She began working here a few years ago as her husband was transferred to Kajang for work.

“I need to do the cleaning today, that’s why I am not wearing my nurse uniform now,” Nabilah said, adding that she works seven days a week and barely has time to clean the premises.

Therefore, she closes the door at a specific time every week to do the cleaning work. The villagers know this and do not come to the clinic during this time.

“There is no doctor here, the doctor only comes once in every month. My main daily work is to help pregnant women in the village with basic medical checkup. 

“If they are suffer from other diseases or (meet with a) car accident, they have to go to other clinics in town or hospitals (located outside Semenyih).

“If the condition is not serious, then they will go to Klinik Kesihatan Semenyih (public health clinic). For emergencies or serious conditions, they will go to the Kajang Hospital,” she added.

“But, sometime the old folks here have some physical limitations. When they have some small ailments, they will also come to me.”

In principle, a nurse cannot do the job of a doctor.

However, as the doctor is only assigned here once a month, Nabilah does her best to help the elders with illnesses such as the common cold.

At the beginning of the campaign period, PSM candidate Nik Aziz Afiq Abdul and Pakatan Harapan candidate Muhammad Aiman Zainali raised the issue of lack of healthcare services in the constituency.

Nabilah told Malaysiakini that she had been called for a meeting at the Klinik Kesihatan Semenyih on that day, where all medical workers were warned against giving any interview or allowing photos to be taken by the media.

Semenyih is located at the southeast area of Selangor, adjacent to Kajang and Bangi, and it is also near to the administrative capital Putrajaya and Negeri Sembilan's capital Seremban.

Selangor has the most concentrated resources among other states in the country but Semenyih, which is located at the edge of the state, has relatively fewer healthcare resources than other areas in Selangor.

However, it is far better than rural areas of Sabah and Sarawak.

“Kajang Hospital is only 17km away from here and there are some ambulances on stand by at the Klinik Kesihatan Semenyih for any emergency,” said Nabilah.

“Normally, if there is an emergency case here, the ambulance will arrive in about 15 minutes,” she added.

Nik Aziz has pledged to upgrade the existing public health clinic into a hospital if he wins the by-election, while Aiman has proposed building a hospital in Semenyih during his campaign.

Meanwhile, Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad said that upgrading the healthcare facility in the existing clinics is a more practical approach.

As a frontliner in the healthcare system, Nabilah told Malaysiakini that she sees building a new hospital as a huge project that is hard to achieve, whereas improving the facilities in the public clinic is a good and pragmatic suggestion.

Increase in population, traffic congestion

Nabilah also pointed out that improving the roads and public transport systems may help the locals have better access to healthcare services.

As a result of the spillover effect from the development of Kuala Lumpur and the Selangor city centre, Semenyih has become a new target of developers, with various housing projects having commenced in the past few years.

As property prices in Semenyih are cheaper than those in the city centre, the migration here is obvious in the increasing number in population and vehicles.

Jalan Semenyih, the main road that connects Semenyih to Kajang, used to be a one-lane road some decades ago. 

Now, some parts of the road have been widened to two or three lanes. However, the irregular number of lanes has worsened traffic congestion.

As some parts of Jalan Semenyih remain as a one-lane road, cars are unable to make way for an ambulance in the event of an emergency and this further delays the process of getting patients to the hospital.

Besides that, there is a lack of public transport services for people to visit the hospitals in Kajang, Serdang or Seremban to seek non-emergency treatment.

Newman Chin, 30, has been running his salon for ten years in Semenyih. As his mother needs to go to the Serdang Hospital for medical checkups regularly, he has to shut his business for the day to take her there.

“If the public transport can be improved, then it will be more convenient for people who do not have cars to move about, and it will also attract more people to come in and bring more customers for us,” he said.

Chin also mentioned that he has seen a rise in new customers in the recent years and he found out that most of them moved to Semenyih from Kuala Lumpur after buying a house here.

As the population in Semenyih is growing steadily, he believes that it is essential to improve the local public transport services.

Bus terminal with no service

Ironically, just a stone's throw away from Chin's salon is the Semenyih Sentral Bus Terminal.

However, there is no bus service here now, and some of the signs are broken and have fallen off. 

During the Semenyih by-election campaigning period, the Kajang Municipal Council (MPKJ) carried out road repairs and the terminal became a "car park" for the heavy vehicles involved in the roadworks.

The bus terminal was built under the BN regime over a decade ago and was revived in 2009 after it had been left idle for three years.

At that time, Bas Bakti Sdn Bhd took over the management and operation of the bus terminal from the Kajang Municipal Council, and provided bus services to various places such as Kajang, Bangi, Tarun, Broga, Beranang, Kampung Rinching Hilir, Seremban and Mantin.

A resident named Lim, who has been living in Semenyih for over 30 years, told Malaysiakini that the location of the bus terminal is unsuitable for the locals and also the bus drivers.

“Actually, it is not suitable to build it here. All the buses have to turn into this area, but it is not along the way. Also, the locals like to wait for the bus along the main road, that’s why the bus terminal was left idle for years again.”

Due to the lack of proper planning, the bus station, which was once resurrected, has once again fallen into dormancy and become a white elephant in the town.

Two days ago, Pakatan Harapan de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim attended a ceramah in this abandoned bus terminal where he urged the locals to vote for Pakatan Harapan for a better future. 

Was he curious why there were no bus services at this terminal? - Mkini