SARAWAK STATE ASSEMBLY The dropping standard of medical care and incompetent  medical officers in Sarawak are of great concern to Sarawakians, the state assembly was told by an opposition lawmaker.

These poor standards have resulted in the death of a mother, caused a needle to be in the stomach of an expectant mother, while dental officers going to the rural areas cannot even perform a simple tooth extraction, Ba’Kelalan assemblyperson Baru Bian said.

Baru ( right ), who is a lawyer and the state PKR chairperson, added: “In Lawas, I have handled two lawsuits arising from medical negligence. One involved the death of a mother in the process of delivering her child.

“Such cases should not happen in this day and age, but it did happen in Lawas. In the second case, a needle was left in the stomach of an expectant mother, who had to undergo emergency surgery to remove it,” he said during the debate on the Governor’s Address yesterday.

“Recently, I have had reports that medical officers going to Long Semadoh and Ba’Kelalan on their routine visits could not even perform simple tooth extractions and left fragments of teeth in the patient’s mouths.

“A dentist in private practice subsequently volunteered to go and finish the extractions for these patients. In another case recently, a doctor botched up when doing the Caesarian section on a woman, resulting in her suffering permanent injury and disability.

“This was two months ago,” Baru said.

He said the falling standard of medical care was of great concern to all the people and asked why this was happening.

His constituents have been complaining that they do not want to be used as human guinea pigs for inadequately trained doctors and dentists.

Those who have suffered from the negligence and incompetence of medical officers are hit harder than the city folk because they have to travel to towns for restorative treatment.

Many suffered physically from lack of proper care. These patients and their families are often not aware of their rights and are left to live with their injuries or loss as best they can, Baru said.

“Notwithstanding the above, I wish to acknowledge the many committed medical staff in rural clinics who have been servicing the rural population for many years.

“They have persevered despite the many challenges of rural medical practice, and we salute them for their dedicated service,” he said

'Get back control over education'

On education, Baru called on the state government to get back control over education in the state, which was handed over to the federal government by Abdul Rahman Yakub when he was education minister.

“With education under the purview of the federal government, are we going to let our students be led down the slippery slope of a shoddy schooling system to a lifetime of shameful incompetence?

“We have at least two generations of spoon-fed, rote-taught Malaysians who have no ability to apply their minds to critical thinking and analysis, while many of those who have had the advantage of an overseas education have chosen not to come home,” Baru said.

“Let us not be taken in by the education minister’s unfounded insistence that our education system is on par with that of many advanced countries.

“This is a man who set his standards so low that he is  be pleased that only 37 percent of trained English teachers in the country are at par with their counterparts in the United Kingdom, where proficiency in the language is concerned.

“One only needs to recall the way the majority of our Malaysian leaders and officers responded (or did not respond) to the Flight MH370 crisis to cringe in embarrassment at their evasive, incoherent and inconsistent statements,” Baru said.