TAMBUNAN: All government hospitals, including Tambunan Hospital, launched the ‘Go Green Without Plastic Bags Campaign’ simultaneously, with other hospitals throughout the state at the district hospital conference room yesterday.
The foremost objective of the campaign is to reduce and abolish the giving of plastic bags to the patients in all the Health Ministry’s facilities.
The activity also aimed to create awareness among the clients on the maintenance and rehabilitation of the environment by reducing the usage of plastic bags to ensure a better and healthier standard of living.
Tambunan Hospital director Dr Paul Molius said this in his opening address to some 100 people comprising hospital staff and patients seeking medical attention yesterday morning.
“The number of plastic bags used by the patients to take home their medicine had cost the ministry more than RM1 million in 2010,” he explained.
“The practice also had contributed indirectly to the plastic bag pollution or ‘White Pollution’ which is gaining seriousness in the nation,” he said.
“To overcome the problem, this approach is applied to avoid the quality of the environment in particular and the health of the Malaysians in general, being jeopardised due to the supply of the items (bags),” he said.
“With the campaign, the supply of plastic bags to the patients will be phased out and the patients are encouraged to bring their own bags when seeking medical attention in the near future,” he added.
Paul also said that the Pharmacy Unit would only consider giving plastic bags to the patients on a discretionary basis based on the requirement.
“The Pharmacy Unit used 200kg of plastic bags in 2009 and gave to an average of 200 to 280 patients a day,” he added.
“The public are also advised to bring along a small canvas bag, a rattan weaved basket or paper bag when collecting big amount of medicine from the Pharmacy Unit,” he said.
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