Johor government has developed several initiatives to address long waiting times for patients at Hospital Sultanah Aminah, Johor Baru. — Filepic
State streamlines healthcare services with lockers, delivery service, smart queuing initiatives
Johor government has announced several initiatives to address the overcrowding at Hospital Sultanah Aminah (HSA) in Johor Baru, which is one of the busiest public hospitals in Malaysia.
Johor health and unity committee chairman Ling Tian Soon said in recognising difficulties faced by patients requiring regular medication, the state government was allocating RM170,000 to instal lockers at hypermarkets.
This will allow patients to receive medication notification and collect it directly from lockers hence eliminating the need for frequent hospital visits.
“However, some of these patients have limited mobility and struggle to go to the hospital just to get their regular medicine.
“To address this, the state is allocating RM900,000 for a medicine post service.
“This ensures medications are delivered to their homes,” he said in his winding up speech during the state assembly sitting at Bangunan Sultan Ismail in Kota Iskandar.
Ling said HSA had 22 specialist clinic services and received more than 2,000 patients daily.
“Each specialist clinic’s queue system is separate and uncoordinated, making it difficult to manage patient traffic flow.
“The third initiative is the allocation of RM1mil for an outpatient digital service application, which is a pilot Smart Queue System (SQS) project at HSA Polyclinic,” he added.
Ling said this system would benefit 57,000 patients per month by reducing congestion at the hospital polyclinics.
“Without coordination of this numbering system, the situation at the hospital will be chaotic and ineffective,” he said, adding that SQS would be a pilot project in Malaysia.
“But now, with initiative from the state government to coordinate the numbering system at HSA, it will make the waiting process more efficient.”
He added the state government had also allocated RM1.9mil to upgrade 465 pantry rooms for nurses and doctors in Johor.
Ling added that the initiative, which would benefit 7,218 nurses and 2,672 doctors, was a sign of gratitude to Johor’s public healthcare workers.
