Hospital Serdang ceiling collapse: no injury reported

A portion of the ceiling near the maternity ward at Serdang Hospital collapsed early this morning.

No one has been reportedly injured from the 2.55am incident, according to a source at the government hospital.

This is the third time since 2011 that such a collapse happened, with four people being injured in a major one in 2012.

However, according to a source, there were "at least 10 more incidents" that were not publicly reported and kept under wraps.

When contacted, hospital director Datuk Dr. Ardi Awang confirmed the incident today but played down the seriousness.

"Yes, the incident did happen, but it's just a piece of the ceiling so I don't think you media need to report about that," Ardi told Astro AWANI.

He added that no one was injured.

In Aug 13, 2012, three nurses and a female medical officer at the Serdang Hospitals' Emergency Department were injured when 15 ceiling pieces measuring 2 ft x 2 ft each collapsed at 2.45am.

Ardi then said the initial investigation found the incident happened when a screw holding the ceiling pieces together had come off, sending the pieces crashing down.

One of the nurses received stitches for her hand injury while the rest were injured on their head and back.

The first reported incident in Jan 2011 involved the main lobby where no one was reportedly injured in a collapse minutes after midnight.

The hospital has been operating since December 2005 and was built to serve the roughly 570,000 population of Serdang, Putrajaya, Kajang and Bangi.

The hospital cost RM690mil to construct and is one of the e-hospital networks envisioned by the Government.