Faculty of medicine gets nod for 400-bed hospital on 38ha site

AFTER 17 years of its establishment, Universiti Putra Malaysia's (UPM) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences will finally have its own teaching hospital.

Following approval from the Health Ministry, the 400-bed hospital will be built on a 38.4ha site next to the existing Serdang Hospital. Construction is expected to be completed in 2018.

UPM vice-chancellor Prof Datuk Dr Mohd Fauzi Ramlan said the university had received an allocation of RM600 million from the government to build the teaching hospital, which he hoped would transform the faculty into a medical centre that can produce more specialists and subspecialists.

"The non-existence of a special teaching hospital for UPM all this while has caused the progress of our undergraduate, postgraduate, specialist and subspecialist courses in clinical programmes to be hampered."

UPM's proposal to build quarters and hostels for nurses has also been approved by the Prime Minister's Department.

"In terms of employment of staff for the hospital, UPM had also made an application to the Public Service Department's Organisational Development Division director last year to employ 2,643 staff to fill various posts at the hospital.

"From the total, 508 will be management and professional staff, while the other 2,135 will be support staff," he said.

Dr Fauzi said the teaching hospital would focus on four areas of health sciences education, namely cancer, stroke, zoonotic diseases and gerontology.

He said the main objective for the establishment of the hospital was to provide complete facilities and equipment to medical students, increase the capacity of community health services and increase opportunities to carry out research and development (R&D) activities in the medical field that will provide added value to UPM in the long term.

It will serve to complement the existing Serdang Hospital in terms of emergency and forensic units, as well as medical expert.

UPM General Staff Union (Kepertama) president Mohd Zailani Abd Razak said the union lauded the government's approval for the construction of the teaching hospital as it would definitely boost UPM's image in medical studies, to be at par with other universities.

He said all this while, UPM's medical students had to undergo training at Kuala Lumpur Hospital, Kajang Hospital, Kuala Pilah Hospital and other government hospitals, with the exception of Serdang Hospital, even though it is built on UPM-owned land.

"To reciprocate the granting of the land, the Health Ministry should turn the hospital into a learning centre and facility for UPM, especially to its medical students, but the matter was never discussed even though it had been raised repeatedly by Kepertama," he added.

source:Bernama