Tawau field hospital starts operation with 8 patients

Kuala Lumpur: The Malaysian Armed Forces (MAF) field hospital in Tawau, Sabah commenced operation Tuesday with the admission of eight non-Covid-19 patients.

Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the operation of the field hospital was to support the Health Ministry (MOH), by focusing on the treatment of non-Covid-19 cases. 

“This is to help relieve Tawau Hospital which is concentrating on Covid-19 cases,” he told a media conference on the development of the Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO), here, Tuesday.

ADVERTISEMENT

He said following the rise of Covid-19 cases in the Kepayan Prison in Kota Kinabalu, MAF would be setting up a field hospital in the area and preparations would be carried out soon.

Ismail Sabri said “Makeshift Treatment Centre” (field hospital) in the prison area would be a treatment centre or an isolation ward for patients infected with Covid-19.

“It (field hospital) is modelled along the one carried out in Pokok Sena, Kedah earlier,” he said.

He added that if Covid-19 positive cases in Sabah continue to increase and needed supporting assistance, MAF would be prepared to create one more field hospital in an area to be determined by MOH.

ADVERTISEMENT

The field hospital was built on the badminton court of Tawau Sports Complex, about 5.8km from Tawau Hospital, and for a start, the MAF field hospital has 100 beds and is complete with an Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and a operating theatre.

In another development, Ismail Sabri said the RMCO special compliance operation team detained 460 individuals for defying RMCO, with 440 issued compounds and 20 remanded on Monday.

He said physical distancing was the most common offence involving 167 people, followed by not wearing face mask (159), failure to provide entry record facilities (58) and others (76).

On “Ops Benteng”, he said 57 illegal immigrants were arrested including 15 in Kota Tinggi, Johor while four vehicles were seized on Monday.

There were 307 roadblocks conducted under “Ops Benteng” nationwide, he said.