Baru urged the state government to provide some relief for the A&E Dept pending the completion of the Petra Jaya Hospital and extension of the Sarawak GH.
He said the proposed new car park block at the GH, with a better and more spacious A&E on one of the floors, was plagued by numerous delays and cost revisions.
“Why has this situation been allowed to carry on for so long?” he asked. “The project was supposed to start in 2013.”
Baru, the Ba’Kelalan assemblyman and PKR Sarawak chairman, said the prime minister and the federal government had let Sarawak down despite numerous promises during the state election and when unfolding the national budgets.
The lawmaker said this after visiting a relative at the Sarawak GH.
It was a five-hour wait for his relative at the A&E until she was admitted and warded. “I was given to understand that the wait was sometimes longer,” he said. “The long waiting time and overcrowded waiting area is the norm at the A&E.”
The place reminded him of a fish market, for want of a better term, he said.
The A&E was a place of life or death, he pointed out. “We all want life to be the outcome.”
However, he said, the atmosphere at the A&E was one of stress and tension.
“The crowds of anxious relatives get in the way of medical staff.”
Baru said he believed the medical staff were doing their best but could not be expected to give their best if the environment was not conducive to their work.