MORE than 1,000 retired nurses and medical officers have returned to serve on the front lines to fight Covid-19, said the Health Ministry today.

“So, we welcome them. This is short term, so we work with them closely but we need to see their expertise as well,” director-general of health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said in a press conference.

“What we would like is those with expertise in terms of experience of working in ICUs,” he added, going on to mention that this included 65 specialists from private hospitals.

He said experienced nurses from the group will be deployed to Covid-19 hospitals.

“We are also very flexible. Say for example, our specialists can only work for two days a week, we put them under sessional.”

Sessional means a limited weekly contract, say 10 hours, to the ministry of health.

Noor Hisham said the ministry also offers a six-month contract for those who are from private hospitals wanting to serve the government.

On a separate matter, Noor Hisham also said that the ministry has supplies of personal protection equipment for another two weeks.

He noted the ministry was procuring more, but welcomed donations, given the utilisation rate had increased 10-fold.

The shortage of PPEs for frontliners has been raised time and again.

Doctors on the ground said, despite the ministry’s assurances of adequate supplies, they still feel the need to try to stretch certain PPE items by re-using them or by making their own equipment because they did not know when the supplies would be replenished.

Malaysia today recorded 134 new cases, bringing the national total to 4,817.

Of those cases, 2,464 are active cases whereby the patients are placed under isolation and are still being treated.

Meanwhile, there was one death reported today, bringing the total number of fatalities to 77. – April 13, 2020.