Hospital overcrowding makes it difficult for much needed maintenance to be carried out, said Skudai assemblyperson Dr Boo Cheng Hau.

This is especially so at Sultanah Aminah Hospital (HSA) in Johor Baru, where a fire on Oct 25 killed six and injured others while another short-circuit incident the next day injured three more, he said.

A ward at Permaisuri Bainun Hospital, Ipoh was also evacuated late Wednesday after sparks were spotted at an electrical socket behind a patient's bed.

"Actually the hospital (HSA) is over-constrained with high number of patients...

"It may have to handle patients three times its actual capacity.

"This imposes difficulties in maintaining and redoing the infrastructures. We need more public hospitals here," he told Malaysiakini.

The DAP representative who served at HSA's neurology department in the mid 1990s said this after visiting the hospital with PKR's Bukit Batu assemblyperson Jimmy Pua and other party members, yesterday.

The assemblypersons presented public donations of RM2,800 to a hospital matron and HSA Staff Welfare Asssociation representative Ng Lai Yen for the three HSA staff injured in the fire.

The main building of the hospital is temporarily closed pending post-fire inspection.

Boo said the number of hospital beds in the Johor Baru-Iskandar area is "very much short of expectations".

Even with private hospitals, he said, the hospital beds per 1,000 population ratio of 1.86 - is only slightly higher than the national ratio of 1.9.

This is a dive from 1970, where we had 3.5 hospital beds for every 1,000 residents, he said.

Malaysia is just behind Singapore which has two beds per 1,000 people while the OECD average is five hospital beds per 1,000 people, he said.

As such, he urged the Health Ministry to hasten legislation that would allow charitable organisations to set up healthcare facilities.

He also urged the ministry to set up a medical scheme to meet primary and tertiary care so as to divert patients from overcrowded private hospitals.

The government should also work with Monash University and Newcastle Medical University Malaysia, which have campuses in the Iskandar region offering courses on medicine, to set up a research and teaching hospital there, he said.

The Johor Baru-Iskandar area does not have a dedicated teaching hospital, he said.

Following the HSA fire, Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam said the government acknowledged that the Johor Baru hospital is running beyond capacity.

He said a new hospital is being built in Pasir Gudang to help with congestion.