Healthcare Facilities and Services Must Continuously Improve

Sabah has continuously strived to provide fast, easy, safe, quality and equitable access to healthcare services against its vast geographical area and population distribution.

“Despite these challenges, we have ensured that everyone, including those in rural and hard-to-reach areas, has access to safe, quality and equitable healthcare services,” Chief Minister Datuk Seri Panglima Haji Hajiji Haji Noor said when officiating the 2026 Borneo Zone TOBaTS (Reject Illegal Medicines Roadshow or Program Kembara Tolak Ubat Tidak Sah on 5th September 2026 in Tuaran.

“We aspire to increase specialist hospitals and increase specialist doctors.” Sabah has taken a step further into the direction when state-owned Yayasan Sabah Group (YS) signed a strategic collaboration with Institut Jantung Negara (IJN) Sdn Bhd, in April 2026, for the construction of a world-class heart hospital in Kota Kinabalu.

For the TOBaTS campaign, Hajiji said that the message must reach communities at the grassroots level to protect consumers from the threat of illegal health products and medicines. “I hope the TOBaTS Roadshow will serve as a starting point towards developing a new culture — one of medicine literacy and of rejecting all forms of fraud and abuse involving medicines,” he said.

Digital platforms and social media make it increasingly easy for unregistered cosmetic products, supplements and medicines to be marketed by irresponsible parties, and so the authorities and consumers must jointly fight illegal and harmful products, most of which do not meet safety, quality and efficacy standards, and can cause kidney damage, liver failure and death, if used or taken, Hajiji added. Enforcement alone may not be adequate. Consumers must be knowledgeable and vigilant, the CM said.