NAJIB Razak lambasted the government today for neglecting to provide hospitals with the facilities to keep the bodies of dead Covid-19 patients.

The former prime minister said hospitals should not have to seek public help to resolve such a problem.

“The government has failed in its duty to provide room to house the dead bodies. I can’t understand why the government could not allocate funding for these hospitals to buy morgue containers,” Najib said on Facebook today.

He said it was a sign of government failure that hospitals were forced to appeal to the public for help with the bodies that were piling up as cases surge.

“The number of Covid-19 deaths is also another government failure,” he added.

The Pekan MP demanded that the government explained how it was spending the money set aside for the management of the coronavirus epidemic. 

Najib was referring to news of a personal donation of a shipping container to the Selayang Hospital to store dead bodies.

The hospital had earlier asked for more of such containers after it ran out of space to store the bodies of Covid patients.

N. Thirumurthi, 54, of Shah Alam, said he donated a 40-ft container worth RM34,000 to the hospital.

Other public hospitals in the Klang Valley have also sought public assistance for similar aid as well as for other essential equipment to handle the large number of Covid-19 patients.

Najib hit out at Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin for being insensitive about the mounting deaths.

“The daily deaths are a number to the government,” he said.

He was referring to a video showing the prime minister telling workers to speed up the burial process by using bulldozers instead of hoes to dig graves.

Last week Najib hit out at Putrajaya for failing to prepare enough ICU beds for Covid care.

The ICU wards in public hospitals are stretched to capacity as infections soar.

Malaysia saw a record number of Covid-19 deaths yesterday with 138 patients dead, for a death toll of 6,866.

There are 908 patients in ICU, 425 of them in need of breathing assistance.

There are 119,814 active cases of infection. – July 18, 2021.