BESUT – The shortage of doctors with the ratio of one doctor to every 2,145 patients in Terengganu is among the causes for the rising infant mortality rate in the state since a year ago.
Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Ahmad Said said from a study conducted, the infant mortality rate was 9.2 per cent for every 1,000 live births within a year.
“Terengganu has thus the second highest infant mortality rate for live births in the country after Sabah,” he said after presenting Ramadan contributions to 120 patients at the Besut District Hospital, here, today.
Also present were state Health, Unity and Consumer Affairs Committee chairman Dr A. Rahman Mokhtar, religious advisor to the prime minister and Besut MP Datuk Seri Dr Abdullah Md Zin, and elected representatives from the Besut district.
Ahmad said the data showed that the rate in Terengganu was lower that the national average of 6.3 per cent for every 1,000 live births.
He said the state government viewed this development seriously and hoped the federal government would help provide Terengganu with more specialists and experienced medical officers like what had been done for Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Johor or Penang.
He also urged the federal government to consider the state government’s request for a specialist hospital to be built in Terengganu to help solve the problem of rising infant mortality.
Ahmad also hoped that the federal government would approve the setting up of a teaching hospital in line with the move to establish a medical faculty at Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin in Kuala Terengganu since three years ago.- BERNAMA
