Letter
by ROAD 10

Have you been to the University Hospital recently? If you haven’t, try it and join the jam and queue which stretches out to its traffic-light junction entrance at Jalan University. And God help you if you have a loved one or friend with a smashed leg or heart attack. If you are indeed at that junction and stuck in the jam, you might just as well read out the last rites as there is a large likelihood of the patient going up to meeting God directly from that traffic junction itself. No way will you be able to approach its oddly built and placed Accidents and Emergency Unit (the signboard mysteriously mentions Trauma but the building itself looks like a giant car park).

The University Hospital or now glamorously termed University Malaya Medical Center has an infrastructure and layout that is well…for a lack of a better term…truly cocked up. For those who are old enough to remember the early years of this Hospital when even the Jalan Gasing/ Federal Highway intersection at EPF was nothing more then a traffic light junction instead of an interchange, this hospital used to be numero uno in its almost ergonomic layout for especially the general public and patients. Whoever the original founders and designers were, they had paid great attention to detail and many a time all that we PJ residents had to do when there was an emergency was just drive up directly to its A&E Department located just after the traffic lights.

Wikipedia states that the Hospital was founded by a Dr. Danaraj during the period when Tunku was the Prime Minister and the foundation stone was actually laid by Jibby’s dad, Razak in 1965. It opened officially in 1968. I remember it was so well designed that anyone running up to its A&E got everything done almost immediately including emergency surgery rather fast. The University Hospital used to have large, rather therapeutic, meticulously maintained lawns that covered much of its open space. I remember still its large open car park off Jalan University. There used to be a mamak shop on the ground floor that sold for 10 cents these large curry puffs. Today you have to fork out RM6 for a piece of cake at its Secret Recipe outlet at its lobby. A chat with the sundry outlets there complain of outrageous rentals.

But like many things in Malaysia, with the passing of its old guard, the University Hospital like almost every other institution in this country appears to be undergoing rather rapid or is it “rabid” development? The chaos is truly astonishing! One has to be actually there to experience the utter traffic nightmare and mayhem as a result of what looks like very haphazard development taking place at the hospital grounds. Looks like Malaysia’s lethal corrupt piratisation program and Ketuanan culture has not spared even this Hospital. A massive so called Primary Care building or RUKA has emerged out of no where blocking its initial main entrance and its original A&E.

To compound matters, its A&E has moved to the main carpark which is quite a distance from its main tower building. As an engineer, I cannot for the life of me, understand how the new A&E was allowed to be built on its open car park space located hardly a few meters from the edge of Jalan University. Patients have to fight their way through traffic to reach its emergency unit. And after having done that, relatives will have to run around in circles looking for a parking space. If you are lost they will eventually direct you to this giant, dimly lit car park right above the A&E building which will truly test your driving skills as you try to negotiate its narrow lanes and super low ceilings.

And if you happen to get a parking space on the 5th floor or something, you will need to grope around to find out where the lifts are. And if you indeed find the lifts (most of the patients were taking the staircases including the mak ciks who could hardly walk), they don’t tell you where you need to get off to get to the tower building. Not only is the ergonomic design gone, the run around can give any patient a coronary. That such a well organized hospital could have been transformed to such pandemonium and haphazardness could only have happened in Bolehland.

But apparently there is worse to come. According to the security guards there, more towers or “menaras” are coming up with no one having any idea where the staff to manage them are going to come from or where the public car parks are going to be. Looking at the signboards and his story, it sounded like another scam “submarine cannot dive “or “jets without engine” story. But to be fair, the nursing standards at this hospital are still much better then one gets in a general hospital I suppose.

However, patients trying to get to this hospital get a very raw deal indeed. Its entrance is literally unapproachable. All the hospital’s open spaces seem to have been replaced with concrete multistoreyed car parks with even more towers being built without any solutions to its current unending traffic and parking problems. Its roads have become extremely narrow from the very outset at the University Road Junction causing traffic to backup to the highly congested Jalan University. Its emergency department is literally sitting on Jalan University. It will be a real miracle if a patient can actually get there except if you are in an ambulance. Its new specialist, pediatric and maternity towers promise to only add to its traffic nightmare.

The Vice Chancellor, who reportedly is a qualified engineer should “turun padang” to see the havoc himself and see how patients, especially the elderly struggle daily because of the poor planning. He should first try making the turn into the badly architectured multistorey car park complex. If he is bringing his grandmother in his MPV, he should get prepared to get a few scratches on the MPV when he tries to maneuver into the entrance of the carpark. He then should try to get to the main tower from the car park complex. And if he is lost at the lifts or find them too slow, he should then take the steps without tripping on the many potholes on its floor. If he misses taking the link bridge because of poor signages, then I would recommend that he takes the steps all the way down and cross the road at the zebra crossing without getting knocked over by the heavy traffic there. For patients, caught in this chaotic environment, it is truly intimidating.

The VC must identify who is responsible for this haphazard development of Malaysia’s best known hospital. For residents in PJ, this is the only General Hospital they know and even if they have to pay a small amount for treatment but it doesn’t matter because it used to be known for its quality care. But now with all its roads choked and car parks literally unapproachable, patients literally risk dying getting to the hospital’s door. A neighbor of mine was referred to the UH for a hormonal problem but after being unable to find a parking space for one hour, she skipped the hospital and kept driving all the way to Putrajaya where she was treated quite promptly.

If the VC or whoever is in charge of this hospital is not going to find a remedy for its traffic nightmare, the UMMC is going to end up a ghost hospital as patients will not be able to get there. In fact, this may already be happening as the A&E Department looks rather deserted for a hospital this size. If the University Hospital doesn’t solve its traffic and parking woes soon, all that building that is being carried out there using tax payer’s money is going to go to waste. The simultaneous rapid building rampage on almost every open space this hospital used to have is highly suspicious, especially if the no staff story is true. I do hope someone is not making money from needless projects