Deputy Health Minister Rosnah Abdul Rashid Shirlin today launched the ministry’s upgraded Flying Doctor Service (FDS) using twin-engine helicopters operated by state-owned company Sabah Air Aviation.        

Two FDS teams will be involved in the operation, the Kota Kinabalu FDS team covering 34 villages and the Sandakan FDS team covering 29 villages, she said.  

“These villages will be visited on a regular monthly schedule (at least five days a week) throughout the year, with each team comprising five personnel including a doctor (on a rotation basis),” she said.  

“This transformation improves the safety of the operations as well as the delivery efficiency of the services. Coupled with the terrain we operate in, it is undoubtedly an essential requirement,” she told reporters after launching the inaugural flight.     

Sabah Air’s collaboration with the Health Ministry started with the signing of the contract and setting up of the first FDS team in Kota Kinabalu in June 1980 but a single-engine helicopter was used.

Yayasan Sabah started the FDS in 1975, also using a single-engine helicopter.  

Rosnah said the ministry and Sabah Air had entered into a RM18.36 million contract for the service from this year to 2016.

She also said that more than 25,000 people in the remote areas of Sabah had benefited from the FDS service.

On another matter, Rosnah said the 1Malaysia (river) mobile clinic in Kinabatangan (Sandakan) and the 1Malaysia eye (land) mobile clinic would start operating by the end of this year.  

- Bernama