Sandakan's healthcare crisis demands urgent upgrades to save lives

KOTA KINABALU, April 28 - Healthcare services in Sandakan are struggling to keep pace with demand, making it the hospital with some of the highest mortality rates in the country, Elopura assemblyman Calvin Chong said in the Sabah Legislative Assembly today.

He claimed that conditions at the Duchess of Kent hospital there is so poor that it records among the highest rates in the country for both child and maternal mortality.

"Patient overcrowding, insufficient wards, lack of parking and staff, lack of health workers and specialists, and hospital facilities are getting worse.

"For example, in Sabah, the mortality rate for children under the age of five years is the highest in the whole of Malaysia at 21.8 per cent.

"This is the data from 2024. The national figure is 8.3 per cent, which means we are 2.5 times higher than average," he said.

He also said the mortality rate for pregnant women is also the highest in the whole of Malaysia with the district recording some 36.3 per cent compared to the national average of 25.7 per cent.

He urged the government to take steps to increase the capacity of wards and the number of healthcare workers in Sandakan, and to speed up building another hospital for the east coast city.

"There should be a clear timeline to make Sandakan a health hub in Sabah," he said.

Chong said healthcare services in Sandakan were inadequate, noting that the city is Sabah's second largest and an economic hub contributing about 10 per cent to the state's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), while also serving as a centre for trade, tourism, education and services.

"The hospital not only serves residents within the district but also receives referral patients from nearby areas such as Beluran, Kinabatangan, Telupid and other parts of Sabah's east coast, placing a far greater burden on the hospital than its existing capacity," he said.

"At the same time, healthcare personnel continue to carry out their duties with dedication, but without sufficient manpower and proper infrastructure, service delivery is inevitably affected," he added.

He questioned the delay in upgrading the hospital, suggesting that it was not only once.

He said the city deserves proper attention, with Hospital Sandakan upgraded to match its status as one of Sabah's key urban centres.

"The people's health is not a political issue. It is a matter of their lives and their rights in Sandakan," he said.