Doctor shortage contributes to boy’s death – director

KOTA KINABALU: A shortage of senior doctors has contributed to the death of a young boy who succumbed to chest pain and breathing difficulties in the Tawau Hospital recently, according to the State Health Director Dr Mohd Yusof Hj Ibrahim.

The investigation into the death of the seven-year-old patient has been completed and a report will be submitted to the Ministry of Health.

“The report is ready but we cannot publish it because it’s a confidential inquiry,” he told reporters here yesterday, adding that the State Health Department would leave it to the ministry to decide on the case.

Mohd Yusof however explained that there was no element of negligence involved and maintained that insufficient senior doctors available was the main factor in the unfortunate incident.

“What happened was when the junior doctor called the senior for help, the senior was busy doing resuscitation on another patient. That is the shortfall there, but there was no negligence,” he said.

It was reported that the boy, who was suffering from chest pain and breathing difficulties, was allowed to be taken home by medical staff after prescribing him with some medicine.

However his parents took him back to the hospital after the symptoms continued throughout the night, but died soon after he was admitted.

Mohd Yusof who was met after officiating at the Hospital Hospital Mesra Bukit Padang (HMBP) MS ISO and 5S certifications said, the Department has contacted the parents and explained the outcome of the investigation.

“We have talked to them and explained (the incident). Our expert has also spoken to the parents. But that one you have to ask the parents themselves. As far we are concerned, we have explained that this was the situation and this was what we have done,” he said when asked whether the boy’s family were satisfied with the report.

He stressed that the department and the Ministry took the incident very seriously and appropriate action would have been meted out if there was evidence of negligence or incompetence on the part of the hospital.

He also noted that actions have been taken in the past against medical experts, senior and junior doctors, and even nurses found to have failed to observe the right procedures in taking care of their patients.

He added, the department has to investigate all deaths at hospitals to ensure there was no element of negligence involved and as part of a continuous effort to further improve the service provided.

“In fact, we have improved a lot. In terms of investigation, we have also move forward in what we term as an external investigation team. Previously, incidents which occurred in hospital A will be investigated by hospital A itself. But now no more, we call experts in the related fields from other hospitals to investigate.

“For the investigation at the Tawau Hospital the experts have finalised the report. Of course there are shortfalls that we need to look into and rectify as soon as possible,” said Mohd Yusof.

He also acknowledged that similar situations where there are often not enough doctors to attend to patients was still common in hospitals across the State, although the department has managed to achieve the target of increasing the number of doctors and medical officers to at least six for every field at all hospitals last year.

“If you talk about vacancies there are still more vacancies in Sabah, at least by 50 per cent but the number is improving. We are currently training about 300 trainees a year and about 100 over to 200 come out to district hospitals every year, but they have to come back to do their master’s programme.

“By 2015, things will be stabilised. Now we are training a lot of medical officers, I would say the 300 would be improved to 400 because we are opening Keningau and Lahad Datu hospitals for training,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a separate development, Mohd Yusof said the awareness on mental health and diseases among the public has continued to improve.

He commented this augurs well with the department’s efforts to involve the community more actively in treating patients suffering from mental illnesses.

“Our approach is to further increase the knowledge and understanding among the people, so that if possible the patients would not require to be sent here for treatment.

“Treatment within the society is better, because they have more direct support from family and friends. Our job then would be to provide the medical aspect of the treatment,” he said.