THE Association of Private Hospitals Malaysia has dismissed Selangor Menteri Besar Amirudin Shari’s claims that there have been delays in the reporting of Covid-19 cases detected in Selangor.

“According to my quick survey at the hospitals, they don’t delay,” association president Dr Kuljit Singh told The Malaysian Insight.

Dr Kuljit was responding to a statement by Amirudin this morning that the state Health Department will issue compounds to private hospitals and clinics that fail to report new Covid-19 cases on the same day of detection.

“In these difficult times we in the private sector are working hard to work together with the government.

“There is no need to threaten with fines and punishments as we are happy to sit together and discuss issues and sort them out for our people in this country,” Dr Kuljit said.

He said private hospitals were open to discussions to address any shortcomings to resolve problems amicably.

He added that private hospitals were also overwhelmed with the caseload and were trying their best to assist the government with managing the pandemic.

“Our labs and hospitals are also working around the clock helping the government and the people,” he said.

He said there were systems in place that allowed private health facilities to report a case to the district health offices upon detection.

Amirudin said there was a backlog of cases as a result from late reporting of cases discovered at workplaces, prisons and private healthcare facilities.

“This backlog goes back to as far as cases which happened 10 days ago.”

Amirudin said failure to report in real time was among the reasons leading to the spike in cases in the state. – January 30, 2021.