An Oxford University medical graduate from Malaysia created history after achieving a remarkable feat of swimming across the Straits of Gibraltar, which is considered by many as ‘the Everest of open water swimming’.
Lennard Lee, who has just finished his medical degree and set to receive his graduation scroll this weekend, was joined by his Oxford colleagues Nicholas Berry and Harry Fisher to swim a distance of 22km from Gibraltar to Morocco.
They accomplished the mission in three hours and thirty eight minutes, and joined the list of other only 185 people in the world who have crossed the straits. Lennard became the first Asian to have completed the feat.
Four years ago, Lennard also made name after swimming across the English Channel. While the English Channel has a longer distance, the Gibraltar Straits presented a greater risk, with the danger of freezing temperature, sharks and killer whales. The straits separates Europe from Africa, connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.
Oxford University is a highly reputable institution in a myriad of academic fields, and was ranked as the third best medical school in United Kingdom for the 2008/2009 by The Guardian, after Dundee and Cambridge.
Image (from left: Nick, Lennard and Harry) credit to OxfordMail.net.
Sarawak is facing an alarming shortage of doctors, with less than half of the vacant medical officer posts filled at the moment.
Out of the 1,334 vacancies, only 510 of them are taken, which represents a mere 38.2%. 90 of them are houseman officers. The statistic is worse for health and outpatient clinics as only 22% of the total 373 doctors’ posts are filled up.
The severe shortage, which affects a number of major hospitals and health center including the Sarawak General Hospital in Kuching, as well as Sibu, Miri and Bintulu hospitals, poses a risk for deterioration in healthcare services in the state.
According to the statistics too, which was revealed by the Chief Minister Tan Sri Taib Mahmud, out of 2.3 million people in the state of Sarawak, only 70% of them have access to hospitals and clinics. This is a pale comparison with the 95% rate in the peninsular. Taib is asking the Ministry of Health to resolve the serious shortage of medical officers as well as specialists in hospitals and clinics, which include provincial hospitals such as in Kapit, Sri Aman and Sarikei.
Naturally, the common reason for the predicament is due to the unwillingness of doctors in peninsular Malaysia to be relocated to the East Malaysia. Additionally, there are also issues of benefits and incentives. For example, unlike teachers, the government doctors working in rural areas in Sarawak is not entitled for hardship allowances. On top of that, Sarawak exercises a rather selective granting of PR (Permanent Resident) which makes the job attracting doctors from outside of Sarawak harder.
