Speaking at the orientation programme for the Diploma in Nursing on April 27, Deputy Chairman of the MPI Board of Directors Dr Peter Tang said that with the rapid expansion of medical services nationwide, there is an enormous opportunity for good quality nurses.
According to him, in medical care, while doctors are important, hospitals depend a lot on nurses in caring for patients. He said nurses work as doctors’ assistants most of the time.
“Just like doctors, nurses could also go for specialisation. If you specialise in cardiology, you are assisting doctors to perform cardiac scans.
“Those are high-stake, high-skill areas. So, we need good nurses because doctors cannot perform without an assistant. The assistant is always the nurse,” he pointed out.
Dr Peter Tang, who is also the Managing Director of Borneo Medical Group, said that the Borneo Medical Centre (BMC) in Kuching alone has almost 700 staff members, and half of them are nurses. This is also the same for BMC in Miri, whereby the group has about 400 staff members, with half of them being nurses.
As a medical doctor himself, he understands that doctors cannot be with patients all the time; thus, nurses play a very important part in the medical centre.
This is one of the reasons why BMC has made efforts to sponsor as many students as possible in this nursing programme. However, he said that due to cost limitations, BMC could not afford to sponsor everyone.
Despite that, he assured those who did not get any sponsorship this time that they would still be guaranteed a job in his medical group if MPI could produce quality nurses.
He said that, in fact, Borneo Medical Group hires between 40–50 new nurses almost every year because of its expanding business.
He explained that over the last 10 years, medical care in Sarawak has advanced and expanded enormously. When the group built Rejang Medical Centre (RMC) in 1998, they spent about RM3 million on the project.
Now, the new RMC, which is currently under construction, is costing about RM150 million. He said another huge medical centre is also coming up in Kuching, costing about RM300 million.
He believes that there is a very bright future for nurses in Sarawak. Thus, he urged MPI to stay committed to producing good quality nurses to meet the needs of the industry.
He also urged the students to take this programme seriously and work hard to qualify themselves as good quality nurses.
“When I do a dedicated surgery – deep surgery, especially the hip and toe burying, all the way to the gallbladder, all the way to the bile duct, all the way inside the liver—you, as nurses, must assist the doctors in this, and you need to be very skillful.
“You will be there one day, but not now. Now, you have to start from the beginning, and I am sure Madam Tang and her team will ensure that you are well-trained. It is important to be well-trained,” he pointed out.
He believes that the nursing students at MPI are in good hands. The aim of MPI is to train students to become good nurses so that they can have a very bright future.
“As a person who runs medical centres in Sarawak, my message to you is to be diligent, as you are now in a good place,” he pointed out.
Also present at the orientation was Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and principal of MPI Dr Lu Huong Ying.