Private doctor tells Noor Hisham and team to leave their ‘ivory towers’, says MoH failed frontliners
(FMT) – A private hospital doctor has accused health authorities in the country of failing to protect medical frontliners battling Covid-19 following reports that some 30 healthcare workers caught the disease in the line of duty.
Dr Musa Nordin from the KPJ Damansara Specialist Centre also urged health director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah and his team to go to the ground and visit the affected hospitals.
He claimed that medical staff were ill-equipped with the necessary protection including personal protective equipment (PPE).
“The DG and his top officers in the ivory towers of Putrajaya must descend to ground zero, the Covid hospitals/Pusat Kesihatan Daerah/Klinik Kesihatan and see and feel the pain and misery of doctors/nurses/allied health professionals bereft of basic PPE to shoulder the nursing of critical patients in ICU and ramp-up screening with 17,000 tests/day,” Musa said in one of several messages he shared.
Yesterday, Noor Hisham in his daily Covid-19 situation briefing said 150 healthcare staff were among the close to 4,000 nationwide who had contracted the virus.
He said 30 got infected in the line of duty, including while treating patients in the ICU.
Musa accused the health ministry of not doing enough to protect its staff, saying bureaucracy had hindered the distribution of PPE safety suits.
“Are you waiting for a doctor or nurse or our allied health professionals to die from Covid-19 before you are jolted into action?
“These scenes don’t augur well at all for KKM (MoH),” he said, adding that his team had carried out a “meticulous needs assessment” at 34 government hospitals treating Covid-19 patients.
He also said the ministry was “failing their frontliners”.
“To me, this is a sin of omission and commission. I will not mince my words! Our first vow in our noble oath of medicine is ‘Primum Non Nocere’, First Do No Harm,” said Musa.
He also said he and his team had distributed 6,000 PPEs to ICUs, with another 20,000 sets to come.
“When is the government distributing the PPEs they bought from China?” he asked.
FMT is trying to contact Noor Hisham for a response.
