Health Experts Plead For Agong To Stop GE15 With MOH At Breaking Point
Malaysia has broken it’s daily case increase record two days in a row already
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In light of recent hints of an upcoming general election, health experts are now pleading for the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah to intervene as the Health Ministry (MOH) is reaching its breaking point in battling the nation’s worst bout of Covid-19 to date.
Datuk Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar, Malaysian Association of Public Health Physicians President told Astro Awani that the YDP Agong can advise politicians and the government to find the balance between the importance of a general election (GE) and the public interest.
We are not against GE, but now is not the time. We hope that, if needed, the intervention of the YDP Agong or the Council of Rulers, first to advise politicians and the government to balance the importance between holding elections and the common good.
Datuk Dr Zainal Ariffin Omar, Malaysian Association of Public Health Physicians President via Astro Awani
(Credit: Instagram/Istana Negara)
The statement comes a day after UMNO president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi called for a general election as soon as possible amidst reported tensions within the Perikatan National government.
More experts speak out
In an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin today, 46 of the nation’s top medical experts have also called for a stop to politicizing the pandemic.
The letter signed by the likes of Tan Sri Dr Abu Bakar Suleiman (Former Director-General of Health), Prof Datuk Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman (Professor of Medicine, Universiti Malaya), Dr Lim Teck Onn (Former Director, Clinical Research Centre MOH) and more urged for the prime minister to secure a bipartisan consensus and approach to flatten the pandemic curve, accelerate efforts to achieve herd immunity as a form of community protection to co-exist with the coronavirus.
GE15 in the midst of an uncontained pandemic is an unmitigated disaster waiting to happen as PRN Sabah has exemplified.
Open Letter To PM: 10 Critical Actions To Manage Covid-19 via CodeBlue.
MOH at “breaking point”
As Malaysia recorded a new record high of new infections (2,593 cases) on 6 January, Health Director-General Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah revealed that MOH is at a “breaking point.”
During the Health Ministry’s daily press conference yesterday, he admitted that the healthcare system was struggling to cope with the number of patients.
Our health system has been pressured and we are at a breaking point because cases are increasing every day. We may not be able to accommodate patients in our facilities. We are looking into how we can enhance our healthcare system. But the best is not only enhancing our healthcare system… but to reduce the load
Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah, Health Director-General.
Dr Noor Hisham is now proposing a more “targeted” version of the Movement Control Order to bring down the number of cases.
Today (7 Jan), Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 cases reached an all time high again with 3,021 new cases, only 6 of which were imported.
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