KUBANG KERIAN, KELANTAN, 23 September 2016 – The Emergency Radio System Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) - ERS-USM has been successfully developed by a lecturer from the Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medical Sciences, Dr. Mohd Shaharudin Shah Che Hamzah.

According to the Assistant Vice-Chancellor and Director of USM Health Campus, Professor Dato' Dr. Mafauzy Mohamed, the system was developed to provide support to downed connections during natural disasters such as flooding.

“With the availability of this system, whenever there are instances of downed telephone lines, this system could be utilised to communicate with the authorities, such as the hospitals in Gua Musang, Kuala Krai, Tanah Merah and so on.”

“ERS-USM was developed as a result of the lesson learnt from the deluge which greatly affected Kelantan in 2014, when Hospital USM lost all lines for communication and which posed a major problem in communicating with other affected hospitals, to facilitate in obtaining the updated status of the patients transferred here for further treatment,” he said when launching the ERS-USM in a ceremony attended by 60 people recently.

Added Mafauzy, with the credibility and the expertise of the committee members of the ERS-USM in managing the system, it would bring about an improvement in the local communications system in facing flood disasters in the future.

"This system could be utilised when all communication lines are down, as the system does not depend on electricity, but instead it is battery-powered.”

Mafauzy said that, whoever is interested to utilise this system could register to become a member.

"USM has collaborated with external organisations in this effort, namely the State Health Department and the 4x4 X-tra Team," he added further.

Translation: Mazlan Hanafi Basharudin