Several hundred patients of Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu are being transferred out after three blocks were declared unsafe by engineers.

Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai confirmed this late yesterday in a statement after weeks of uncertainty over the fate of the 27-year-old hospital.

The affected patients will be sent to Likas, Damai and the Sabah Medical Centre in Kota Kinabalu and two other hospitals in Keningau and Beaufort along the west coast.

Damai and SMC are private hospitals where the Health Ministry would rent beds and pay for services. An additional 108 beds have been added in Beaufort and 24 beds in Likas. Near-emergency cases and surgeries are being performed in Keningau while two operating theatres and three ICU units in Likas have been put at the disposal of QEH.

“The recommendation (evacuation) was based on the latest report of an engineering evaluation by Kumpulan Ikram Sdn Bhd and JKR Sabah on the deteriorating building structure of the three blocks," said Liow.

queen elizabeth hospital kota kinabalu 251008 "The Ikram report also indicates that the blocks in question are experiencing continued deterioration of their structural strength. Their life span is at stake and remedial works are not economically viable."

Facilities at the forensic department and boiler room will still need to be used, according to Liow. The ministry is urgently putting up a temporary building structure for continued use of the facilities to support the services in the main tower block "until the action of moving the medical services from the block in stages is completed in the short term".

The minister said the affected blocks will be replaced by a new 10-storey block.

"At the same time, we are considering a proposal to buy a new building to overcome the problem of congestion to meet health service needs especially in Kota Kinabalu," he added.

Situation critical last Friday

QEH sources say that most of the affected blocks were in fact evacuated last Friday when the situation was deemed to be critical. The main tower block houses 250 beds and vital facilities for core medical services in Sabah. These include eight operating theatre, the forensic department, radiology department, central sterile supply department, pharmacy and other wards.

Meanwhile, it is learnt that the QEH management had alerted the Health Ministry as early as 2000 about deteriorating conditions at the hospital. The problem initially started with falling concrete fragments in the wards and toilets. Although safety measures were taken by the management to reduce the problem of concrete fragmentation, the incidents continued with increasing frequency over the years.

The Health Ministry is supposed to monitor and carry out maintenance and repair works on the hospital from time to time through its concession company Syarikat Faber Mediserve and the JKR Sabah. It is not known whether such works were in fact carried out satisfactorily and on schedule. Liow said JKR Sabah conducted an inspection of the hospital in 2006 and last year but "could not ascertain the real status of the safety of the buildings concerned".

A task force has been set up at the ministerial level at the State Health Department to implement and monitor measures for the complete evacuation of the hospital.