GUA MUSANG, June 16 — The Fire and Rescue Department’s (JBPM) Air Unit mounted a mercy flight to send a critically ill Orang Asli woman to receive treatment at the Gua Musang Hospital here yesterday.

Its Subang Air Base public relations officer, Asst Supt Mohd Farhan Marzuki said the flight was to transport Roslin Asud, 54, from  Pos Bihai here, who was suffering from heart problems and neck cancer.

He added that the MV-17-IV helicopter left the Subang base at 2.30pm yesterday and arrived at Pos Bihai at 4pm and brought Roslin to the Gua Musang Hospital compound at 4.20pm.

"We were informed that the patient had been suffering for eight days in her house, besides experiencing fever and vomiting,” he said when met here yesterday evening.

Mohd Farhan said JBPM received a call from the Orang Asli Development Department (Jakoa) in Gombak about the plight of the Orang Asli woman at 11am.

In addition, he said the main problem for the woman who resided in Pos Bihai, was the badly damaged access road to her village which made it difficult to use land transport to send her to hospital.

"The patient was accompanied by her husband, Alut Anjang, 59. Thankfully, her condition didn’t worsen during the flight,” he said.

He noted that this was the 17th mercy flight to help ailing Orang Asli in the Gua Musang interiors during the first six months of this year.

Last year, the department performed over 40 mercy flights including transporting Orang Asli students who were stranded due to damaged roads. — Bernama