KUALA LUMPUR, June 23 ― In a third incident at public institutions here, a woman has come forward alleging that she was forbidden from entering the Sungai Buloh Hospital here recently because she was dressed in shorts.
In her Facebook post accessible to the public that is being shared on social media, the woman who goes by the moniker Nisha Daddygal said she was then forced to borrow a towel to cover up her legs before she was allowed to visit her father who had been warded there.
“The moment I reach the visitors gate they was few security guards stop me and say ‘you can't go in because you're wearing shorts’,” she wrote on June 21.
“I have no choice my father need to go up to the wad and borrow patient towel and bring down for me to tie and close my half knees as the security guards request than [sic] only they let me to go in to visit the patients,” the woman said.
The incident took place on June 16, according to the woman’s Facebook post.
She added that the hospital security personnel had told her that the no-shorts policy came directly from the Ministry of Health.
In the pictures that accompanied her posting, 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 the security guard’s uniform are seen in the background.
Malay Mail Online was not able to reach the woman directly through her Facebook post for verification but an authority at the Sungai Buloh Hospital later acknowledged the incident.
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 Prema Nanthini and a Pandamaran resident named Tan Lee Fong had come to the SUK 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 on the other hand, issued a public apology after the incident went viral on social media. It also clarified that there was no such policy that allows its officers to force visitors to put on the sarong if they violate the department's dress code.
