Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital to take immediate steps to improve shuttle service

TRANSIT noted this interesting article last month, in which the Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital had announced that it would take steps to improve its shuttle service, add service during lunch hour, and use the hospital director’s personal vehicle as a shuttle (presumably if necessary).

Shuttle service during lunch hour (NST, 11 August 2011)

SEREMBAN: The Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital here assured the public that it has taken all possible steps to enhance the efficiency of its shuttle service, including using the hospital director’s personal vehicle as a shuttle.

Its chief assistant director, Rosleeza Jamaudin, said the hospital started its own shuttle service at the end of 2008 with a bus and a van.

“Since then, the shuttle service has been well accepted by visitors and even our own staff. Initially, we planned to provide the service on weekdays from 7.30am till 6pm at 10-minute intervals.

“However, due to the limited number of vehicles and shortage of drivers, we had to reschedule the service at 15-minute intervals and by not including lunch hour.”

She said the hospital administration was well aware that the shuttle service needed to be upgraded and be more efficient.

“We have since rescheduled our working hours so that there is no break in service during lunch hour (visiting hours) beginning this week.

“In fact, we even started using the hospital director’s own vehicle as a shuttle and have also submitted a request to the state health department for more vehicles to ferry passengers.

“We believe that with the completion of the new women and child block which consists of 900 parking lots, the issue of parking space will be resolved,” she added.

Streets had recently highlighted the plight of patients and visitors who said they faced numerous problems because of the shortage of parking lots at the hospital.

TRANSIT Says:

We are impressed that the Hospital Management has accepted that there is a problem, identified reasons for that problem, and resolved to find solutions and implement those solutions as soon as possible.

That is a far cry from what we see in other cases, where denial comes first, followed by excuses, followed by blameshifting and avoidance of responsibility. Sometimes, and only sometimes, there is an admission of responsibility and steps are taken to make sure that the issue is resolved.

TRANSIT wants to be able to say good things about more organizations and public transport service providers. We know there are problems in the industry, but we need to see more leadership by example, rather than leadership by resistance & refusal to cooperate. This story about the Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital is a good example of the kind of positive action we and the public want to see more of.