KUALA LUMPUR, July 14 — The emergency ward at Hospital Tengku Ampuan Rahimah (HTAR) was not cleared out ahead of Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin’s visit yesterday, the hospital’s director said today.
In a statement, Dr Zulkarnain Mohd Rawi said the ward was full of patients and the movement of patients on the day was part of a scheduled relocation from the usual trauma centre to the daycare treatment complex.
He added that the decision to use the daycare complex as a temporary Covid-19 patient treatment space was made on July 9 by the hospital’s administration, and not the emergency and trauma department.
“Based on current trends, the emergency and trauma department is seeing around 150 to 180 patients daily on average.
“Hence, the viral accusation that the emergency and trauma department was ‘vacated’ for the prime minister’s visit on July 13, 2021 is not true as the department was full of patients that day.
“Meanwhile, patients who had yet to receive treatment on the day were 177 individuals. The moving of Covid-19 patients to the daycare section was a contingency plan made by the hospitals level disaster management team.
Yesterday, Muhyiddin visited HTAR, which was said to be having issues coping with the high volume of Covid-19 patients.
More resources have been pumped into the hospital to boost its operations, with the Health Ministry sending 151 additional beds and MIC donating a container to be used as a temporary morgue.
