MOH tries innovative ways to prevent congestion at hospitals and clinics

The Health Ministry is looking at several measures to decrease congestion at its hospitals and clinics nationwide so that social distancing can be implemented effectively.

According to Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, among the new practices that they are going to introduce include staggered appointments for patients, where the latter would only come to clinics according to the time of their appointment.

This was against the normal practice where patients would usually sit in cramped spaces at MOH facilities to wait for their names to be called.

Another measure, Noor Hisham added, is the introduction of virtual clinics where patients do not need to be present physically to meet healthcare workers, not even to take their supply of medications.

"As you know in our healthcare facilities in MOH, whether it is a clinic or hospital, they are congested all the time.

"Now we are looking into how we can introduce the appointments, for example, a staggered appointment system and make sure that we only see the patient when it's time. And those patients who come to our hospital or clinic they have to wait in their car first, so when their appointment is called then only they come in.

"So we are trying to look into a lot of ideas and innovation to make sure that we comply to the standard operating procedures we have particularly in MOH," he said at a press conference in Putrajaya today.

He was answering a reporter's question over a recent viral image of patients waiting at a cramped space in a government clinic while waiting to meet doctors.

Large gatherings and being in cramped spaces are among the activities which MOH had advised against since the Covid-19 outbreak.

According to Noor Hisham, the ministry has been providing home-to-home services to Malaysians like in the case of post-natal care.

Now, he added, MOH was looking into expanding the approach to include services to other patients including those who had suffered a stroke.

"Instead of they coming to us, we are going to them. So this is another concept that we are trying to introduce in the MOH.

"We are looking into various ways to improve the terms of our services and then bringing the services back to the community, this is important, then we can reduce congestion in the hospital.

"If we can reduce the congestion in the hospital then can introduce the social distancing so we are looking into it seriously at all levels, so we hope that we will come out with a new system in place for clinics and hospitals," he said. - Mkini