Welcome Rakan Sarawak February 2003

Rangkaian Khidmat Awam Negeri Sarawak

A MONTHLY SUPPLEMENT OF RAKAN SARAWAK BULLETIN

(People, events, activities and programmes which make for a total quality-managed Sarawak Civil Service)

ISSN 1394-5726

Online Publisher:

Contents provided by:

Health Service Delivery System in Sarawak By Land, Water, and Air

Flying Doctor Service

The Sarawak Health Department is the principal provider of health care in Sarawak. A network of facilities located throughout the state provides promotive, preventive, curative and, to a lesser extent, rehabilitative health services to the people. The facilities encompasses static facilities, e.g., hospitals, and mobile facilities, e.g., flying doctor services, so that those people residing in less accessible areas could also be served.

Currently, there are 290 health facilities in Sarawak made up of 21 hospitals, 12 poly-clinics, 12 out-patient clinics, 23 maternal and child health clinics, and 28 dental clinics serving the urban areas while 173 health centres and 21 community clinics serves the rural communities.

The static facilities cover about 70% of the population but mobile units have increased access to almost 90%. The rural facilities alone cover about 680,000 people while the flying doctor service serves around 70,000 people. In order to expand its service to the people, the Sarawak Health Department introduced the Village Health Promoter Programme to enable basic health care to be provided to remote areas on a more continual basis.

There are several types of health service delivery system, static and mobile, that are available from the Sarawak Health Department, such as:

Hospitals

The Sarawak General Hospital, Kuching

There are three types of hospitals in Sarawak. The smallest is the district hospitals without specialists and are managed by medical officers. Next are the district hospitals with specialists (previously known as the divisional hospitals). The Sarawak General Hospital serves as a referral centre for the state and provides sub-speciality services.

Polyclinics

The urban clinics are managed by medical officers whilst the larger polyclinics are managed by Family Medicine Specialists. They basically provide general outpatient care, maternal and child care, dental care, and laboratory and radiological services.

Rural Health Centres

There are 194 rural health clinics functioning as a “one-stop” family health centre that provides an integrated service comprising of maternal and child care, general outpatient care and environmental sanitation. The clinics are managed by allied health personnel and have rest beds and birthing facilities to encourage safe delivery among rural mothers. Community clinics are smaller version of health centres that could serve between 1,500-3,000 people.

Village Health Teams

These are mobile clinics providing health care services to people in less accessible areas. The teams travel either by road, river or on foot, depending on the accessibility of the areas they serve. In rural areas, the Village Health Teams are based at the rural health centres while those serving pre-urban areas are based at the Divisional or District Health Offices.

Flying Doctor Services

These are also mobile clinics introduced in 1973 to provide basic health services to people living in remote areas. The service operates 3 helicopters (rented from a private company) based in Kuching, Sibu and Miri. They cover 175 locations and a population of 70,000. The flying doctor team comprises a medical officer, a medical assistant, and two community nurses who visit the locations once a month.

Health Facilities in Sarawak

Village Health Promoter (VHP) Programme

The village volunteer programme was introduced by the Sarawak Health Department to provide basic health care to remote villages on a more continual basis. The VHP Programme was started in 1981, and by 2001, there are 2,956 VHP throughout the state serving a total of 271,182 people from 1,664 villages.

Under the programme, two volunteers from each participating villages are provided three weeks training on a fairly wide-range of health related topics. Upon their return to the respective villages, the volunteers would give first aid, do health promotion, and makes blood slides for detection of malaria parasites and sputum slides for detection of tuberculosis. Regular feedback are provided by the volunteers on their activities, and they are regularly supervised by staff from the Sarawak Health Department.