Sabah’s First Children’s Hospice in Sight

The SEPEDA Amal Borneo cycling event concluded triumphantly on 1st August 2025 after 17 international participants completed a six-day, gruelling 600-kilometre journey from Sandakan to Kota Kinabalu in challenging terrain and weather conditions. The group - individuals from diverse professions, backgrounds, and nationalities – cycled to raise funds and awareness for children’s palliative care in Malaysia. The cycling initiative was a powerful and meaningful effort in highlighting a critical but often overlooked paediatric palliative care.

This is the fourth year that SEPEDA Amal Borneo was held, and this year, 2025’s focus was supporting the Malaysian Association of Paediatric Palliative Care (MAPPAC) who provides vital support for children with life-limiting chronic illnesses. MAPPAC is planning to establish Sabah’s first children’s hospice. There is an acute shortage of paediatric palliative specialists in Malaysia: presently the country only has six centres despite nine million children in need of care.

In Sabah, services are limited to a single facility, the Sabah Women and Children’s Hospital in Kota Kinabalu, where 100 new paediatric patients were referred to the palliative unit in 2024 alone. Sabah is in urgent need to address the lack of trained specialists, and to raise funds for more centres and especially in the rural areas. The expertise and infrastructure remain lacking.

Sabah’s main challenge is accessibility for children in rural communities who are unable to reach Kota Kinabalu for health care and all of them are underprivileged children. MAPPAC’s vision for a dedicated children’s hospice in Sabah is admirable. It is essential that the hospice project is successfully completed so that children can receive care in a purpose-built environment without repeated hospital trips and especially the children from rural places. The people of Sabah are looking forward to collaboration between the Federal and State governments to establish the hospice, with meaningful help from non-profit organisations and groups.