By Jeff Yong
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 3: Some parts of Malaysia’s healthcare system may eventually receive a boost to be on par with global standards following UEM Edgenta Berhad’s latest partnerships with three companies to strengthen the company’s presence in healthcare support locally and internationally.
Through its Edgenta Healthcare Support division, the asset management and infrastructure solutions-based company, today signed three Memorandum of Business Exploration (“MOBE”) agreements with WAS, First Ambulance Services and Optima Technic at the Arab Health 2023 exhibition in Dubai. These agreements are in line with the company’s ‘Edgenta Of The Future 2025’ growth agenda in the healthcare support, infrastructure and technology sectors.
Edgenta Healthcare Support has been providing non-clinical healthcare support to more than 300 hospitals in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and India since its inception.
WAS, a German-based company, is one of the world’s leading manufacturers for special vehicles and ambulances with more than 20 years of experience.
UEM Edgenta is taking advantage of WAS’s technological advances and innovative concepts for ambulances and patient transport vehicles as WAS provides emergency services with safer, more efficient, and enhanced user-friendly emergency vehicles to offer better emergency services.
First Ambulance Services is a Malaysian private ambulance outfit, providing integrated, high quality, pre-hospital emergency and medical care, patient transport, and medical retrieval services to the Malaysian community, offering fully integrated turnkey solutions for hospital-based smart ambulance services.
Optima Electro Hydraulic Ltd Co (Optima Technic), a Turkey-based company, provides various economical mobile solutions in furnishing mobile hospital solutions, mobile military solutions, and designing and manufacturing of mobile engineering solutions and mobile commercial solutions.
Syahrunizam Samsudin, Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of UEM Edgenta, said the partnerships with WAS and First Ambulance aimed to uplift healthcare services in Malaysia and other regions simultaneously.
“We hope to elevate the country’s healthcare system to be at par with global standards. Our combined expertise in healthcare services, digital healthcare, and asset management technology, will enable us to enhance our healthcare system and improve patient journey, in support of Malaysia’s Ministry of Health’s vision, as well as in other regions, mainly the Middle East, Asia, and other countries globally,” he said in a statement here.
As part of Edgenta’s commitment in delivering Environmental, Social and Governance (“ESG”) initiatives, Syahrunizam said the company was also exploring the potential of EV Ambulance in line with the launch of Vision 2030 by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the kingdom’s commitment towards reducing carbon emissions.
“This is a step forward in UEM Edgenta’s continuous aspiration to provide integrated and high-quality emergency medical services, towards a better patient-centric care ecosystem”, he said.
As for its partnership with Optima Technic, Syahrunizam said it would help UEM Edgenta to provide better access to safer and fast-built facilities, which was in line with its healthcare infrastructure upgrade for rural and remote areas where communities there lacked basic access to essential health.
Also present at the signing ceremony was Rais Imran, Chief Strategy Officer of UEM Edgenta, Hillary Chua, Chief Financial Officer of UEM Edgenta, Shaiful Subhan, Managing Director of Edgenta Mediserve, Derrick Wong, General Manager of Operon Middle East, together with Andreas Plöger, Managing Director/Chief Strategy Officer of WAS, Steven Penafort, Managing Director of First Ambulance Services, Ismail Tamer, Chief Executive Officer of Optima Technic.
Fadly Amri, Consul General of Malaysia to the United Arab Emirates, Asrul Ab Rahim of Khazanah Nasional, Abdul Mukti, Director of MIDA, Dubai, and Megat Iskandar, Trade Commissioner, MATRADE witnessed the MOBE signing.
–WE