AN examination area for women without privacy. A makeshift wooden ladder connecting a jetty and a boat that could endanger a pregnant woman’s life.

These are some of the less-than-satisfactory conditions highlighted about the Health Ministry’s Mobile Service Clinic that serves people in villages and remote areas.

“Without proper partition and privacy, the mobile clinics could not provide antenatal, post-natal and Pap smear services for mothers,” the Audityor-General’s report noted.

Photos that accompanied the report showed various unsatisfactory conditions in the mobile clinics, including one that was potentially harmful.

One of the photos showed a clinic in Kinabatangan, Sabah, that used a wooden ladder for people to climb up to the boat.

Meanwhile, other mobile service clinics such as Rumah Gawan Sungai Iran and Rumah Sujang in Sarawak had to operate without tables and chairs. Medical officers had to sit on the floor to carry out registration, patient examination and treatment, said the report.

The ministry replied that its Mobile Service Clinic needed community involvement as the premises to conduct the services were run and prepared with their cooperation.

Source: The Star