WHAT ABOUT THE BILLS BEFORE 2009?

DAPSY KK appreciated Deputy Health Minister Datuk Rosnah for her swift efforts to compile the figures and reveal to Sabahans that foreigners have owed Sabah hospitals RM21million since 2009-2011.

Its assistant Youth Chief, Junz Wong said we thank Datuk Rosnah so much for addressing people concerns about the outstanding accounts owed by foreigners so efficiently.

"However, we, Sabahans would appreciate if Ministry of Health can reveal the amount owed before 2009 too. Perhaps reveal to Sabahan the breakdown amount since 1994 because that was when BN started to rule Sabah," Junz added.

Junz elaborated that it was no secret that Sabah has been plagued by PTI problems for few decades now.

Junz Wong who is also DAP Sabah Assistant Secretary reminded Datuk Rosnah that she must understand that the figure may not be RM100mil altogether but RM21mil is a staggering figure which can be used for Sabahan welfares. That was why we DAP Sabah is very concerned about this issue.

Datuk Rosnah advised people to look at the situation with holistic approach when those foreigners ran away without paying the bills, which were actually quite a number of them.

Junz proposed that Hospitals to contact nearest police n immigration officers when foreigners come forward to seek for treatments. Many that ran away without paying were obviously those without proper documentations. This also explained why Health Ministry is finding it hard to retrieve the RM21million ringgits because these unregistered foreigners via PTIs cannot be traced at all.

Hospitals will still provide them treatments on humanitarian ground but detain them after and deport them back to offset the outstanding treatment bills. This is a good way to cope with the problems to ensure that lesser foreigners are left unattended in our lands.

What we want to hear from Ministry of Health in 2 or 3 years time, is that the accumulated figure has come down to for instance, RM19million or RM15million BUT not appreciating outstanding bills to RM25million or even RM30million. Junz concluded.