Answer to Oral Question PL084

QUESTION

Yang Berhormat Awang Haji Md. Salleh bin Haji Othman

YANG BERHORMAT AWANG HAJI MD. SALLEH BIN HAJI OTHMAN asks the MINISTER OF HEALTH to state the criteria in identifying the need for the construction of a new hospital. To what extent is consideration given to building a hospital in areas experiencing rapid population growth?

ANSWER

Yang Berhormat Menteri Kesihatan

In identifying the need for the construction of a new hospital and health facilities in general, the Ministry of Health assesses several main criteria including population growth, healthcare service needs, as well as the capacity and utilisation rate of existing facilities, including hospital bed occupancy rates and the ratio of hospital beds to population.

The Ministry also takes into account patients' accessibility to health facilities, including travel time to the nearest hospital, as well as the size of the service catchment population, to ensure that health facilities are able to accommodate the needs of the population in a particular area.

In addition, health workforce planning is also assessed, including the population-to-health workforce ratio such as doctors, nurses and other health professionals, to ensure that the planned facilities can be supported by a sufficient workforce and can be operated safely.

Apart from considerations of service needs, the Ministry also assesses financial implications and cost-effectiveness, including development allocations, efficiency in the use of resources, as well as return on investment for the health system, to ensure that every investment in health infrastructure provides optimum benefit to the people.

In this regard, areas experiencing rapid population growth are among the important factors in considering the construction of a new hospital. However, any proposal will be evaluated comprehensively to ensure that the planning of facilities, services, workforce and financial resources is aligned and sustainable within the national health system.

The Ministry of Health constantly monitors and evaluates the capacity of the country's health facilities through several key technical indicators, including the ratio of hospital beds to total population as well as hospital bed utilisation rates or bed occupancy rate. These indicators are important to ensure that healthcare service capacity is sufficient and able to meet patients' treatment needs, particularly for increasingly growing secondary and tertiary care services.

If the bed utilisation rate approaches or exceeds the optimum level for a certain period, this situation may place pressure on hospital operations and affect the ability to accommodate new patient admissions. Therefore, continuous assessment is carried out to determine whether existing capacity needs to be strengthened through optimising bed usage, expansion of existing facilities, or consideration of developing a new block to support more sustainable healthcare service delivery.

At the same time, I would also like to share the aspect of primary healthcare. A new health centre is proposed when the existing health centre is no longer able to accommodate the current population in terms of patient capacity, as well as when there is a need to expand the scope of services. For example, Pusat Kesihatan Mengkubau is planned to accommodate excess patients from Pusat Kesihatan Muara, which also affects Pusat Kesihatan Berakas. Meanwhile, the construction of Pusat Kesihatan Bandar Seri Begawan is planned to accommodate excess patients from PK PAPHMWHB Gadong.

In addition, planning for the construction of new health centres also needs to take into account the need to expand infrastructure in facing the increase in the elderly population. Health services should also be expanded and decentralised from hospitals to the primary healthcare level, to ensure easier, more efficient and more comprehensive access for the community.