The Indian community living in the rural areas of Port Dickson’s parliamentary constituency wants better quality health services, among others.

The residents, especially those in the Chuah state constituency, said attention should be given towards ensuring rural residents enjoy health facilities that are on par with those in urban areas.

They are banking on the representative who will be elected in the coming Port Dickson by-election to bring about this change.

P Valshniee, 26, of Kampung India, Chuah, said more health clinics should be built in the village. Currently, there is only one – Klinik Desa Chuah – which caters for residents in Kampung Sawah, Kampung India, Kampung Sungai Nipah and Kampung Pachitan.

“We want more rural clinics to be built in the interior areas in Port Dickson,” she added.

She said the residents in these villages have to go to Lukut clinic or the Seremban Hospital, which is far away.

Plantation worker P. Balakishnan, 57, who has gout, said the presence of another clinic in the area would help to overcome over-crowding and the long wait time at the Chuah Rural Clinic.

Port Dickson has a district hospital, five health clinics and seven rural clinics.

Apart from better health services, the plantation workers want efforts to be made to improve their living conditions.

Cattle rearer G. Selvaraj, 71, hopes more aid and incentives could be given to cattle rearers and breeders to enable them to produce better quality products.

The Port Dickson parliamentary constituency, consists of five state constituencies, namely Chuah, Lukut, Bagan Pinang, Linggi and Sri Tanjung. It has a population of 103,202 people, of which 75,770 are registered voters, comprising Malay (43 percent), Chinese (33 percent), Indian (22 percent) and other ethnic groups (two percent).

The Port Dickson by election was called after its incumbent Member of Parliament Danyal Balagopal Abdullah, 68, vacated the seat last Sept 12 to give way for PKR president Anwar Ibrahim to contest and return to the Dewan Rakyat.

The parliamentary by-election will witness a seven-cornered fight involving Anwar as the Pakatan Harapan candidate, Lt. Col (Rtd) Mohd Nazari Mokhtar (PAS) and five independent candidates, including Anwar’s former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan and former Negeri Sembilan menteri besar Mohd Isa Abdul Samad.

In the last general election on May 9, Danyal Balagopal, 68, won the seat with a majority of 17,710 votes, defeating Barisan Nasional’s candidate Datuk VS Mogan and Mahfuz Roslan of PAS.

The Election Commission has fixed Oct 13 for polling and tomorrow for early voting.

– Bernama