KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Medical Association (MMA) urges the Federal government to deploy "urgent and massive financial aid" to Sabah, instead of declaring an Emergency.
Its president, Professor Datuk Dr Subramaniam Muniandy said there was no need for an Emergency declaration at the moment.
"All other areas under Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO) including Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and Putrajaya are under control and the situation should be improving with its current measures.
"However, the situation in Sabah is serious and the state needs all the help they can get, especially in terms of personal protective equipment (PPE), medical equipment, and financial aid for their healthcare needs," he said in a statement today.
Dr Subramaniam said the government should act fast in channeling aid to control the Covid-19 situation in Sabah, or there might be a total collapse of the healthcare system in the state soon.
"We are seeing great numbers of reports saying that frontliners in Sabah are on the verge of throwing in the towel due to fatigue, mental stress and an acute shortage of manpower.
"Furthermore, we noticed that significant numbers of healthcare worker deployment are from within the state itself rather than from interstate. This will not increase the number of workforce needed to tackle the dire situation.
"In fact, the bed occupancy in Sabah public hospitals are reaching full capacity and in some areas, less severe Covid-19 patients have to be isolated and home treatment instituted.
"At this point, the government should consider engaging more help from public healthcare facilities from other states to be deployed to Sabah," he said.
The association is concerned that the daily number of Covid-19 cases reported may be much less than actual numbers.
"Considering the delays in reporting test results, contact tracing and isolation of infected individuals, we can expect Covid-19 cases to continue to be high in Sabah as a backlog in test results are being cleared.
"This delay in testing turnover time will affect the system's ability severely, especially in conducting contact tracing and isolating infected individuals while preventing further spread of the infections at the same time.
"An urgent boost from the government is needed on the issue of limited testing capacity including engaging private sectors and interstate resources.
"The Federal government should speed up the emergency funds and all related aid needed to mitigate the situation in Sabah," Dr Subramaniam said.
The association is also calling for Malaysians to stay united in the war against Covid-19, especially for the people of Sabah.
"Every minute of delay in this mission for Sabah is putting the whole nation at risk of unmitigated national disaster that may go down as one of the darkest chapters since the birth of this nation.
"We also strongly appeal to all leaders, regardless of political affiliations and the whole nation to come together for Sabah and do our best.
"Now is the time for scientific, practical, coordinated solutions to the Covid-19 situation in the country and not a time for political squabbles that has not improved the situation in the country in any way," he said.