SUBANG Jaya rep Michelle Ng’s ordeal to get an ambulance for a Covid-19 victim last night ended on a positive note as the patient is now getting treatment at the Malaysia Agriculture Exposition Park Serdang (MAEPS) quarantine centre in Serdang, Selangor.

Ng took to Twitter to share the 16-hour wait she experienced to get an ambulance for the sick woman, who was suffering from shortness of breath and needed desperate medical attention.

“After getting treatment at Kuala Lumpur Hospital, where she was stabilised, she was transferred to MAEPS in Serdang.

“She is a category 3 Covid-19 patient (symptoms of pneumonia) and at MAEPS, she has some level of medical surveillance, which is what she needs now,” Ng told The Malaysian Insight.

Ng said the woman, who is originally from Indonesia, was abandoned by her employer at Shah Alam Hospital. She was, however, allowed to live in the accommodation provided by the employer.

“She lost her job but the employer still provided her a place to stay. I cannot understand the psyche of this person.

“All I know was when it came to a point where the employee was ill and required medical attention, she was abandoned in Shah Alam hospital.

“As the employer was registering her, she (the employer) told the hospital that she didn’t know her.”

Ng said while it was a challenge to get an ambulance, not getting one to help this lady was not an option as she did not want to risk anyone in the community getting infected.

“That wasn’t even an option in my mind (not able to get an ambulance). There were options available, it was just a matter of costs,” she said, adding that she paid RM700 to transport the lady to HKL.

“I paid out of my own pocket, I didn’t use my state allocation. She is a migrant worker, usually our allocation is used for citizens.

“We were very fortunate, in part also having the ambulance being shuttled around during the day, they knew which hospitals were full.

“When it came to our case in the middle of the night, we were able to zero in to HKL although we were prepared for them to be so full that they couldn’t take in anyone else, but fortunately they were able to take her in.

“We didn’t have to pay the additional RM200 per hospital to the ambulance service if they had to travel to another hospital to get her help.”

Ng said in her Twitter that private ambulance services were charging between RM850 and RM1,209 to ferry patients to hospitals.

She added that earlier in the day, the same ambulance had shuttled a patient from hospital to hospital seeking treatment and it cost the person RM1,700.

This is not the first time Ng had people coming to her in need of an ambulance, but added in the past several months it has been harder to get them.

“Without a doubt in the last few months it has been harder to get an ambulance. Our community ambulance, SJ Beacon, two of the paramedics are down and ill. Now we have to rely on 999 and private ambulance services.”

Alhough the woman is now stable, Ng said she will keep tabs on her until she is discharged as she does not have any family in Malaysia. – August 3, 2021.