Guan Eng raises plight of nurses getting 'burial shrouds' for uniforms
Hariz Mohd, Alyaa Alhadjri & N Faizal Ghazali
Published: Oct 22, 2024 6:33 PM
PARLIAMENT | The Dewan Rakyat today heard about the plight of government nurses who were allegedly supplied with bad quality fabric to make their uniform, with some donating them to be used as “kain kafan” (burial shroud).
Lim Guan Eng (Harapan-Bagan) said in his debate speech that the issue was recently highlighted by Senator Dr RA Lingeshwaran, and urged the Health Ministry to reveal the companies responsible for supplying the material and whether any action has been taken against them.
“I want to get the Health Ministry’s attention to complaints by nurses about the fabric they received, which they said was very ‘keras’ (coarse) that some tailors had declined them out of concern that the cloth can break their sewing machine’s needle.
“There were also those who complained that the fabric they received was quick to turn yellowish and that they ended up being scolded by their matrons (nursing managers).
“I am raising this case here because there have also been worse cases where some nurses decided to just donate the fabric supplied to them to be used as a shroud,” he said when debating Budget 2025 today.
Lim claimed that many nurses had to accept the fabric that was supplied to them because rejecting the material would cause them to lose some RM690 in allowances, which are provided by the government for tailoring purposes.
The DAP chairperson then urged the Health Ministry to provide further details to the Dewan Rakyat regarding the contractors responsible for supplying such materials to its workforce.
“Can the Health Ministry provide further details on this contract, especially the amount of tender for procurement of white fabric for nurses and medical assistants?
“What are the names of the companies that supplied the materials, and whether any legal action can be taken against them like a fine, and how come the monitoring system allows for such a low-quality uniform material to be supplied (to the Health
Ministry)?” Lim said.
Complaints falling on deaf ears?
It is believed that the complaints raised by Lim might have come from comments left on a TikTok video that Lingeshwaran posted last week about a meeting the senator had with the Health Ministry to highlight the uniform issue.
In the video posted last week, Lingeshwaran said he had told Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad and the ministry’s deputy secretary-general (finance) Norazman Ayob about the “unsatisfactory quality of the uniform supplied to nurses”.
Complaints falling on deaf ears?
It is believed that the complaints raised by Lim might have come from comments left on a TikTok video that Lingeshwaran posted last week about a meeting the senator had with the Health Ministry to highlight the uniform issue.
In the video posted last week, Lingeshwaran said he had told Health Minister Dzulkefly Ahmad and the ministry’s deputy secretary-general (finance) Norazman Ayob about the “unsatisfactory quality of the uniform supplied to nurses”.
Senator Dr RA Lingeshwaran
According to Lingeshwaran, who is a doctor and a former hospital director, the Health Ministry claimed that it has not received any such complaint from nurses but promised to get feedback from the group.
However, the comments section under Lingeshwaran video suggested otherwise and that the problem has been prevalent.
“Previously, we have given feedback about the quality of uniform, why didn’t it reach the upper management?” said a TikTok user.
Another said: “We all had to buy our own fabric, never once we used the ones supplied by the Health Ministry (because) not only the material is so ‘keras’, but it’s also cream in colour, not white.”
A user suggested that nurses who wear the supplied material take photos and send them to the minister, adding that the fabric would usually start to wear out in just three months.
One of the comments also made fun of the fabric being donated to be used as shrouds: “Dapat kain, keras… buat balut jenazah pon, agaknya mengelupor jenazah tu… kain kapan lagi lembut. (The fabric is so coarse that perhaps it can wake up the dead because a normal shroud would be softer.)”
According to Lingeshwaran, who is a doctor and a former hospital director, the Health Ministry claimed that it has not received any such complaint from nurses but promised to get feedback from the group.
However, the comments section under Lingeshwaran video suggested otherwise and that the problem has been prevalent.
“Previously, we have given feedback about the quality of uniform, why didn’t it reach the upper management?” said a TikTok user.
Another said: “We all had to buy our own fabric, never once we used the ones supplied by the Health Ministry (because) not only the material is so ‘keras’, but it’s also cream in colour, not white.”
A user suggested that nurses who wear the supplied material take photos and send them to the minister, adding that the fabric would usually start to wear out in just three months.
One of the comments also made fun of the fabric being donated to be used as shrouds: “Dapat kain, keras… buat balut jenazah pon, agaknya mengelupor jenazah tu… kain kapan lagi lembut. (The fabric is so coarse that perhaps it can wake up the dead because a normal shroud would be softer.)”
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