No state election, please: an appeal from Malaysia’s doctors

Will selfish politicians ever learn? Selfish and irresponsible is how one can describe politicians in the Melaka state assembly who decided to put “self” above the nation and stir the political pot at this time when the nation is seemingly on the road to recovery from the pandemic.

Many say that we are in this current sad state of affairs because of the Sabah state election which sparked a chain of rapid transmissions of Covid-19 in Malaysia.

Granted, a high percentage of our population has been vaccinated against the dreaded Covid-19, but the numbers being infected are still high. The current daily active cases number more than a hundred thousand with the daily death rate going above a hundred. Aren’t these sobering numbers to the politicians who are clamouring for an election to be held? Having a state election now would be like going out from the frying pan and into the fire.

For a long time, deaths from severe Covid-19 were in the hundreds almost daily. Many children were orphaned and women widowed by the dreaded disease. There are many victims left behind suffering from long Covid with some tethered to oxygen concentrators for God knows how long to be. Do we want to add on to the numbers?

Have we forgotten the fallen heroes from among the medical and non-medical frontliners? The medical frontliners have been battling the pandemic for close to two years now with many having their leave frozen, and an equally large number who either opt to stay out of their homes or dread going home after each shift for fear of bringing the virus back to their loved ones.

Life has never been normal for the medical frontliners facing a never-ending stream of Covid-19 patients coming into the hospitals, PKRCs, CACs etc. The vaccination programme has just begun to bring a reprieve to these exhausted and dedicated frontliners.

What happened to the truce that was called by politicians from opposing sides and their pledge to work together for the sake of the people?

As far as the medical fraternity is concerned, we are dead against a state election being held during this time, not at least till the current situation returns to near normal.

Dr Koh Kar Chai is president of the Malaysian Medical Association.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of MalaysiaNow.