KUCHING: The difficult terrains in the interior parts of Sarawak have hampered the Health Department from providing oral health care to all the 1,260 primary schools in state. As for last year, about five percent of the schools are located to a very interior areas were not covered due to difficulties in reaching them by air, land or river.

Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai, who acknowledged this problem faced by the state Health Department, hopes solution can be found when a review on this service is made this July. He said the service should cover more schools int the rural areas so that students there are not being deprived of free oral health care.

"We hope to cover 98 percent of all the schools by end of this year" he told reporters after launching the 1Malaysia ORal Health Awareness campaign at a shopping mall here yesterday. Earlier during his speech, Liow said he was happy the Oral Health division has made significant achievements in the provision of health care in Sarawak. He said they did only not cover 95.2 percent or 1,202 primary schools in Sarawak comprising 252,558 schoolchildren, but also provided oral health care to 46,410 children in 1,456 kindergartens in Sarawak representing 65 percent of pre-school children last year.

Source:Borneo Post