After borrowing paramedic teams from the Armed Forces, the National Service (NS) Department hopes to have three medical assistants and two nurses for 83 camps by next year.

It is part of a RM20 million allocation for the NS camps, which will include the equipment needed and 50 ambulances, that had been decided on in April, said NS Training Council chairperson Lee Lam Thye.

Lee said he had met with Deputy Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak to inform him and he was satisfied with the decisions made and was looking forward to the implementation, according to a Star report.

"The (NS) Department, under the director-general, submitted papers to the Health Ministry two weeks ago to get comments on this matter.

"The feedback will be passed on to the Defence Ministry, which will submit papers on hiring these people to the Public Service Department (JPA) by December. These positions need to be created by the JPA for the NS Department, which will be responsible for them," said Lee.

The announcement comes soon after the family of a trainee who died while undertaking national service has filed a suit demanding RM10 million from the government for negligence.

No compromise on safety

The family of 18-year-old Mohamad Rafi Ameer, who died two weeks ago, named the government and the commander of the training camp in Kemaman in Terengganu as defendants.

Media reports had put the figure of NS deaths since it began in 2004 as being at least 20.

Last week, however, Najib said while the government will not compromise on safety at the NS training camps, the number of deaths had been exaggerated.

Fourteen trainees had died and not 20 as reported, said Najib. Of the 14, six deaths were due to illnesses suffered by the trainees themselves such as heart disease, asthma and liver infection.

Four deaths occurred during training, two died as a result of accidents, one trainee died while on vacation and one died three days after the completion of training.

Of the remaining two cases, one drowned while on holiday and the latest case at the Cheneh Cemerlang Camp in Kemaman was being investigated, said Najib.