Star Foundation, Star Media Group’s charitable arm, has donated medical equipment to Hospital Enche’ Besar Hajjah Kalsom here.

The contribution consisting of one mini ventilator, one unit of bedside patient monitoring system, two units of fetal doppler and one gel padding set was under Star Foundation’s “Star Frontliners Initiative” to help frontliners fight the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hospital Enche’ Besar Hajjah Kalsom director Dr Azura Abu Bakar said such contributions would help medical staff in providing better services to patients.

“We really appreciate and are thankful for all the contributions we have received over the past few months. These contributions, including personal protective equipment (PPE), have helped our medical frontliners greatly in battling Covid-19, ” she said after receiving the donation.

Star Media Group’s Johor bureau chief Nelson Benjamin represented the foundation in handing over the items.

Dr Azura said the hospital had been receiving such donations since the movement control order started.

“Most of the contributions are PPE and dry rations for patients who are being treated here.

“At the moment, we have enough supplies of PPE, thanks to generous contributions from the public, ” she said.

She said an equipment which the hospital needed was an automated CPR machine as it would help reduce the risk of transmission between Covid-19 patients and medical frontliners.

Dr Azura said the number of Covid-19 cases in Kluang had dropped and there were only five active cases in the hospital at the moment.

“At the height of the pandemic, we were treating about 160 patients a day, including patients from Johor Baru and those from Kampung Dato’ Ibrahim Majid, which was placed under two weeks of enhanced movement control order.

“Thankfully, we have the capacity to treat all of the patients as there are 358 beds in this hospital, ” she said.

She added that the hospital, which was previously designated for Covid-19 patients, had started to accept other patients again since the end of May.