PULAU PERHENTIAN, July 18 ― The picturesque islands of Pulau Perhentian, situated 10 nautical miles off the coast of Terengganu, receive more tourists each year than the sum of its inhabitants.
But despite the islands’ popularity as a travel destination, the health needs of the tourists and over 2,000 inhabitants of islands are dependent on just a small “klinik desa” — literally “village clinic” — manned by a paltry crew of four, none of them doctors.
Mohd Al Amin, 26, has not gone back to his hometown in Kota Baru, Kelantan to see his wife for weeks. Being the sole medical assistant (MA) stationed here, he carries the tough responsibility of attending to every patient who seeks help here.
“I really am here 24 hours a day,” Al Amin told The Malay Mail Online, still grinning in his neat white uniform despite the humid island weather.
“I stay in a room in the clinic,” he revealed, his head nudging towards the rear of the building situated in the small village in Pulau Perhentian Kecil.
Besides Al Amin, other staff of the clinic included two Terengganu-born nurses, and Perhentian native speedboat driver Wan Ali Damat, 39.
Together, the team attend to cases ranging from the easy, such as common cold, to more serious ones like coral cuts, usually sustained by tourists while they snorkel or scuba dive.
The nurses, Rosmaiza Rahim and Norashikin Hussin, have also delivered a couple of babies, but any emergency cases need to be referred to the Hospital Besut in the Jertih town, a 30-minute boat ride and another 15 minutes’ drive away.
“The risk here is that there is no easy access to hospitals,” explained a concerned Al Amin.
“The monsoon season poses the biggest problems,” Wan Ali added. “If the waves are too huge, we would have to call the Maritime for bigger boats,” he said, referring to the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), the national coast guards.
Wan Ali, who previously worked in tourism, has a total of seven years’ experience piloting the light brown-coloured ambulance boat that is kept moored off the coast of the Kampung Pulau Perhentian here.
His most hectic experience so far was a horrific accident just two months prior, involving two foreign tourists who were struck by a boat propeller during their dive session near the Shari-La Resort here.
Madeline Jayne, 25, from England died en route to the hospital, while Simon James Rogers, 22, from Australia survived the trip to Universiti Sains Malaysia Hospital in Kubang Kerian, Kelantan.
“It’s a real pity here, because the cases they receive are nothing like the ones inland,” said Dr Fatin Farhana Tuan Kamaruddin, a visiting medical officer from Klinik Kesihatan Kampung Raja in Besut.
The 28-year-old doctor was among the few doctors from around the Besut district that are sent here for a day of consultation every two weeks.
“I usually see kids below the age of five and the elderly,” she told The Malay Mail Online in between attending patients, saying that MAs are not trained to do so.
While Dr Fatin conceded that some of the equipment in the clinic has long been faulty, the biggest problem for her was the supply of medicine.
She explained that when supplies have to be restocked, Al Amin would need to take a return boat ride onshore, leaving the clinic unattended.
Rumours are abound at the clinic that the Ministry of Health may finally build the larger “klinik kesihatan” here, which is usually staffed by two to four doctors, especially in the run-up to the by-election.
A visit by The Malay Mail Online to the purported site, however, revealed just another new mosque in construction, and no visible plans for a clinic to be built just yet.
Until the rumours of a bigger and better-staffed clinic come to pass, Al Amin said he would try to take each day on the island at a time, and hopefully visit his also-working wife when he has time onshore instead of bringing her over.
“If I bring her here, then I would also need to send her back to Kelantan,” he said, laughing sheepishly.
There are 2,163 residents on Pulau Perhentian, almost all of them Malays who mostly work in the tourism industry. They make a part of the 17,679 registered voters in the Kuala Besut state seat.
Former Barisan Nasional (BN) assemblyman for Kuala Besut, Dr A. Rahman Mokhtar was also from Pulau Perhentian, and was a well-loved and respected figure among the islanders.
Dr A. Rahman died of cancer on June 26, triggering a by-election between BN’s, Tengku Zaihan Che Ku Abdul Rahman, 37, and PAS’s Azlan Yusof, 48.
In Election 2013, Dr A. Rahman had defeated PAS’s Napisah Ismail with a comfortable 2,434-vote majority.
