(vi) Provision of Healthcare Services for the Orang Asal
As earlier mentioned, while more and more Orang Asal are migrating to the periphery of
the urban areas, the majority of the Orang Asal still reside in rural and remote areas. 111
This situation has presented a challenge for the Government to effectively deliver various
vital services. To overcome this problem, various outreach programmes have been
instituted to serve the needs of rural and remote communities.
In terms of healthcare, the Government has introduced a number of mobile healthcare
services to reach rural and remote communities, including the Orang Asal. In Sarawak for
instance, the Flying Doctor Service (FDS) and Village Health Promoter Programme
(VHPP) were introduced to serve communities in less accessible areas.
The FDS team consists of a medical officer, a medical assistant and two community
nurses who visit the locations once a month or once in two months. The FDS operates
three helicopters based on Kuching, Sibu and Miri in Sarawak, and cover a total of 141
locations in the remote parts of the State. It attends to around 70,000 outpatients every
year. The FDS also provides medical emergency evacuations for critically ill patients to
be transferred to the nearest appropriate hospital or clinic. They are also responsible for
(1) Indigenous peoples have the right, without discrimination, to the improvement of their economic and
social conditions, including, inter alia, in the areas of education, employment, vocational training and
retraining, housing, sanitation, health and social security;
(2) States shall take effective measures and, where appropriate, special measures to ensure continuing
improvement of their economic and social conditions. Particular attention shall be paid to the rights and
special needs of indigenous elders, women, youth, children and persons with disabilities”.
UN General Assembly, Declaration on the Right to Development (resolution/adopted by the General
Assembly, 4 December 1986) A/RES/41/128, Article 2:
Article 2
(1) The human person is the central subject of development and should be the active participant and
beneficiary of the right to development;
(2) All human beings have a responsibility for development, individually and collectively, taking into account
the need for full respect for their human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as their duties to the
community, which alone can ensure the free and complete fulfilment of the human being, and they should
therefore promote and protect an appropriate political, social and economic order for development;
(3) States have the right and the duty to formulate appropriate national development policies that aim at
the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals, on the basis of
their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of the benefits
resulting therefrom”.
109
UN General Assembly, Declaration on the Right to Development : resolution / adopted by the General
Assembly, 4 December 1986, A/RES/41/128 <http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/41/a41r128.htm>
111
SUHAKAM (n. 9), 11
110
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