MAEPS PKRC to be reactivated starting tomorrow - Khairy

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said for a start 100 beds were provided to treat patients in the Klang Valley and the number of beds would be increased as needed.

"MAEPS will be reactivated tomorrow. This is not because we do not have enough beds in hospitals, but this serves as a pre-emptive measure and provide buffers so that hospitals can continue to treat non-COVID-19 cases without interruption due to cases caused by the Omicron wave," he said in a press conference on COVID-19 development here today.

He said the reopening of the PKRC was among the strategies adopted by the Ministry of Health (MOH) during the Omicron wave which saw a rise in daily cases.

Khairy said the ministry is also faced with the issue where patients who came to the hospital to seek treatment for other diseases tested positive for COVID-19 after undergoing screenings.

"Even though they are not treated due to COVID-19 when there is such a case we have to use hospital beds and isolate them.

"This will complicate matters at the hospital, because of this we (decided) to reopen the PKRC at MAEPS and send positive cases there," he said.

He said the PKRC would be used for a shorter period compared with during the Delta variant wave.

"We expect the PKRC to be used until Omicron subsides," he added.

MAEPS Integrated PKRC 2.0 was officially closed on Feb 8 after operating for 14 months to treat a total of 166,072 COVID-19 patients.

MAEPS was activated as a PKRC on April 16, 2020, with the intake of COVID-19 patients at the centre only involving non-citizen patients for category one (no symptoms) and category two (mild symptoms), and then closed on July 15 the same year.

On Dec 9, 2020, the government decided to reactivate the MAEPS PKRC following the increase in COVID-19 cases.

Initially, patient intake only involved non-citizen patients for categories one and two but on Jan 24 2021, it was upgraded to the MAEPS Integrated PKRC 2.0 after starting to accept category three patients (pneumonia) and four (requiring respiratory assistance) with moderate symptoms.