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:	Gotong Royong or Self help The Crucial Factor to the Successful Implementation of Medical Projects By Goh Kheng Yong, Jabatan Kesihatan Sarawak, Kuching The abundant natural resources of Sarawak must necessarily include the tremendous spirit of self-help existing especially among the rural communities. The vastness of the state can easily deter the government from developing or providing services to the rural population at a pace that it would like to unless the rural people also accept projects on a self-help basis. The Medical Department has been among the earlier discoverers of the self-help quality of the Sarawak rural communities and has since been harnessing it to advantage in carrying out medical projects for the promotion of better rural health. What the department has done is to provide blue prints of requested projects and supervision of the projects. Without the system of self-help, many of these projects would have to be prioritised, built at a higher cost and dependent on the funds available. In the environmental sanitation programme, the department supplies materials for rural water supply and latrine construction projects and transport them right to the rural villages or to the point nearest the villages where they come out to bring them in either by boat or by foot. During construction, the villagers provide free labour and allow the use of their land for the projects and work under the supervision of the medical staff. The free labour and free use of their land bring down the cost of the projects substantially and this saving can be used for more projects. Self-help projects developed by the department greatly discourage free handout of project. Instead such project calls for minimum token contribution such as in the water supply project where the villagers have to pay RM20.00 each to encourage part ownership concept so they can appreciate it. These self-help projects take some time to complete and involved the villagers carrying the materials from the point of receipt to the point of construction over some distance. The villagers deserve praises for their perseverance as they toil away to its final completion which sometimes can take up to a year. As at 1990, 101 sanitary wells, 195 mechanical pumps, 2337 piped gravity water systems and 987 rain water tanks have been implemented. In the curative programme, the Medical Department supplies building materials to the villagers. The villagers assisted through self-help to put up sub-dispensaries and staff quarters in their area so that the department can send the necessary staff to provide medical care. Such service might not come about so soon if the villagers did not use self-help method. To depend on full allocation of fund, the project might not be carried out in their areas for a long time. Another special medical project made possible under the curative programme is the self-help construction of landing pads for helicopter for flying doctor services. A total of 25 sub-dispensaries and 189 Flying Doctor Services locations were constructed. All the medical sanitation and curative projects were made possible through the valuable efforts and ingenuity of the rural people. The Medical projects completed under gotong royong method might be sub-standard to some but they serve their purpose well.
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