KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 — Putrajaya must clarify the issue of dress codes at government facilities after a woman was forced to wrap her legs with a towel to gain entry into the Sungai Buloh Hospital here recently — the third such incident in recent weeks, her father said today.
Driver P. Annan, 52, whose daughter was prevented from entering the hospital to visit her aunt recently, said the growing frequency of such incidents needed a clear answer from the administration.
“The government must answer. This is a public issue. They should not be asking the ministry to answer instead,” he told Malay Mail Online when contacted.
Annan said that he is not going to demand an apology from the hospital over the incident, saying the show of contrition would not prevent a repeat of such incidents in the future.
“What for? They will apologise and do it again,” he lamented.
In a Facebook post being shared on social media, Annan’s daughter said she was forced to borrow a towel to cover up her legs before she was allowed to visit a patient who had been warded at the hospital, in the incident which reportedly took place on June 16.
The woman who goes by the moniker Nisha Daddygal added that the hospital’s security personnel had told her that the no-shorts policy came directly from the Ministry of Health.
In the pictures that accompanied her post, the woman was seen wearing a loose T-shirt and a pair of black shorts.
She also posted a picture of herself wearing a yellow towel at the entrance to the hospital, where a signboard depicted the hospital’s dress code for visitors. Two men dressed in security uniforms are seen in the background.
Annan told Malay Mail Online that he along with his sister and nephew made it in without issue.
“My daughter was, however, banned from entering with us and I had to rush up to my sister’s ward and borrow her towel to cover her up,” Annan told Malay Mail Online, adding that another female visitor was also not permitted from entering and held outside the hospital’s entrance along with his daughter.
“I asked the guard why she was not allowed in, but they said it was an instruction. When I asked for the letter or circular on such rules, they could not produce any and told us to air our grouses by writing about our issues and leaving it inside a suggestion box which was there instead,” he added.
The woman’s complaint comes amid public uproar over two similar incidents involving the Road Transport Department and the Selangor State Secretariat building where three women were told to put on sarongs to cover their legs.
Yesterday Klang DAP MP Charles Santiago said a New Straits Times reporter named C. Premananthini and a Pandamaran resident named Tan Lee Fong had come to the State Secretariat building in Shah Alam, Selangor for his press conference, but the security guards barred them entry unless they put on the sarongs.
On June 9 a middle-aged woman who was made to wear a sarong over her skirt, which was slightly above the knee, when seeking service at a Road Transport Department (RTD) office.
Selangor Mentri Besar Azmin Ali said there was no such policy in SUK and that his government will investigate the matter.
The RTD issued a public apology to the woman, but while it said there is no policy that allows its officers to make visitors put on a sarong to obtain service, it insisted that the dress code will continue to be enforced.
