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Third email to Khir Toyo praising him as one of the rare breed of Barisan Nasional leaders who use and not just talk IT who should be an example for the majority of Cabinet Ministers and State government leaders to emulate if Malaysia is serious about wanting to become an IT power Media Statement by Lim Kit Siang (Petaling Jaya,  Thursday): I have this morning received an email reply from the Selangor Mentri Besar, Datuk Seri Dr. Mohd Khir Toyo to my two emails to him in the past two days on the worst dengue epidemic in the Selangor state. I have sent him a third email today, praising him as one of the rare breed of Barisan Nasional leaders who use and not just talk IT and who should be an example for the majority of the Cabinet Ministers and State Government leaders to emulate if Malaysia is serious about wanting to become an IT power. The Health Minister, Datuk Chua Jui Meng in particular should learn from Mohd Khir as he is one of the Cabinet Ministers who is guilty of never responding to emails, raising the question whether the Health Minister's email address, [email protected], is a dead one which is only good for show, but all emails sent to the address are as good as lost in the deep wide ocean! Although I commended Khir Toyo in my third email for keeping to his word when launching his own website, www.mbselangor.com., on 5th February 2003 that he would personally read all emails sent to him through the website and that he would promptly reply to them within 24 hours (Khir Toyo said he is getting hundreds of emails daily since the launch of his website), I expressed dissatisfaction with his reply on the subject of my two emails. Khir Toyo said he would reply to the questions I raised in my two emails after he had received the fullest information on the subject, which is quite shocking as it gave the impression that although he is the Selangor Mentri Besar, he is not on top of his job as not to be aware of the gravity of the worst dengue epidemic in the state causing a shocking toll of totally unnecessary and avoidable deaths which affect all races - Malay, Chinese and Indian. No responsible Mentri Besar should or need to ask for more time for more information to respond to questions about the worst dengue epidemic in the state, which had raged unchecked for the past eight months, causing the hospitals in the state, public and private, to overflow with dengue cases as well as the most number of dengue deaths in the state's history. A responsible and conscientious Mentri Besar should in fact have all the relevant information on the worst dengue epidemic in the state on his finger-tips, as the dengue epidemic should have been the top priority agenda in every weekly State Exco meeting for the past six months at least. For this reason, I had reiterated in my third email the three questions I had raised in my two earlier emails, together with a fourth question, asking Mohd Khir for a prompt response as they concern life-and-death issues for the people in the worst dengue epidemic in the state. These questions are:  Why Selangor has 140% higher incidence of dengue cases and more than 1,000 per cent dengue deaths than Singapore although both have almost the same population of slightly over 4.1 million people;  Why Singapore could successfully bring the dengue epidemic under control with its anti-dengue campaign while in Selangor, the dengue epidemic has entered an even more critical stage than last year - although both received the same World Health Organisation (WHO) warning last July of an impending dengue epidemic in the region.  Why as Selangor Mentri Besar, he is aiding and abetting the mishandling of the worst dengue epidemic by MCA A and B Ministers and leaders because of their own MCA power struggle, when saving lives and stopping unnecessary and avoidable dengue deaths should be the top priority of UMNO leaders.  Why is the Selayang General Hospital turning away and refusing to admit suspected dengue patients for the past few months - when this could have saved lives? In my email to Khir Toyo, I referred to the most recent case of Selayang General Hospital refusing to admit a confirmed dengue case. Mohamad Rizuan bin Abdul Aziz, 23, went to the Selayang General Hospital on Tuesday (Feb. 18) with a running fever and was confirmed to have dengue. However, because his platelet blood count was at 73, he was refused admission and was told by a doctor to get another blood count the next day and that he would only be admitted to the Selayang General Hospital if his blood count drops to 50 or below. Yesterday, Mohamad Rizuan's blood count at a government clinic dropped to 39. He immediately went to the Selayang General Hospital to be admitted, but was refused admission when another blood count at the hospital showed 63, still above the arbitrary 50 mark. Rizuan was admitted into the Kuala Lumpur general hospital for dengue after a DAP worker rushed him over to the KL hospital from Selayang. Rizuan is currently warded in the Dengue Ward in the KLGH. Doctors I spoke to are shocked that the Selayang General Hospital has adopted such an arbitrary and irresponsible rule for dengue admission, especially when the nation and the Selangor state are faced with the worst dengue epidemic with the most number of dengue cases and dengue deaths recorded in the history both in the nation and Selangor state.. A normal platelet count is from 150 to 450 thousand platelets per microlitre of blood. Any platelet reading below 150 certainly constitutes low platelet, and coupled with a running fever in the midst of the worst dengue epidemic in the country, warrants hospitalization for observation. In my email to Khir Toyo, I urged the Selangor Mentri Besar to make an urgent visit to the Selayang General Hospital and to cause a full review of its arbitrary, irresponsible and unprofessional dengue admission rules, which put hospital administration convenience above the Hippocratic oath of doctors to save human lives.   (20/2/2003) * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman