Interestingly, the Emergency Ordinance has exposed most of the private hospital’s ICU are really not ICU! Its very ironic when the idea was for private to help KKM with the current surge of Cat 4 and Cat 5 cases overwhelming KKM ICUs.

Only 70 out of 1138 are the critical care beds offered by the private hospitals for Covid19. Currently the allocation for KKM ICU beds circa 1/3 of total 700 beds is almost full. 226 to be exact on 18/1.

A big number of private hospital have declared they do not have the optimal expertise and resources to manage Cat 4 and Cat 5 cases. In the covid19 guidelines, Cat 4 and Cat 5 needs mandatory ICU care!

With the recent Emergency proclamation, more Cat 4 and 5 are appearing at private hospital’s doorstep.KKM covid ICUs are congested if not maximised, it has come to a stage where they cannot be transferred out and these private hospitals are panicking!

The insurance fraternity have also declared they dont cover covid19s due to pandemic. Yada yada discussion with Bank Negara that they will easen the burden of their customers. Easy burden apa when ICU bill can be thousands of ringgit per day?

Hence should we have called these private hospitals as ICU in the first place? Really need to categorise these “ICUs” clearly so that the public is not disillusioned that the private ICU is equivalent to KKM ICU.

Dont even get me started about comparing private hospital Emergency Department versus KKMs!

The truth is KKM’s ED and ICU are the most well equipped and of high standard. In dire emergencies, they are the best of what we can expect them to be by far. But when they are stretched, the private sector is very much inferior.