Malaysia's increasingly deadly coronavirus surge is stretching its medical resources, with critical wards filling up and some patients turned away or experiencing long waits. This is taking place even as more spaces are being converted to Covid-19 wards.
Non-Covid-19 patients are also feeling the pain as capacity for their needs is reduced, with priority given to coronavirus patients.
The authorities have said the country, which now has more cases per million people than India, has yet to reach the stage where health workers have to triage - selecting patients for care based on their chances of survival.
But there are signs that families of non-Covid-19 patients are beginning to have to make such decisions about their loved ones.
A healthcare worker at a key hospital in Kuala Lumpur said that some patients requiring critical care have had to be turned away.
"We try to accommodate all, but we don't always have ventilators and beds," the front-liner, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Straits Times.
He related an incident where a critically ill non-Covid-19 patient's family was told to opt between taking their loved one back home to die or keeping him in hospital with the same outcome.
Families of Covid-19 patients are also facing a struggle to secure critical care beds for their loved ones.
A professional who recently lost her father, 85, to coronavirus-related complications said that when he was diagnosed with Covid-19, it took the family more than 12 hours to secure a bed for him at a semi-government hospital in Selangor, as the beds were full at hospitals that treated Covid-19 patients requiring critical care.
The 51-year-old, who wished to be known only as Jane, told ST: "The doctor caring for my father called every hospital in the city to try and get a bed for him once the test result came back positive. It was a stressful time for us because he was also a dialysis patient."
The northern state of Kedah - which has seen a drastic surge in cases in the past weeks - has said it might no longer admit chronically ill patients with little hope to intensive care units (ICUs), whether they are Covid-19 patients or not.
Dr Mohd Hayati Othman, the state's health and local government executive councillor, said: "I feel heavy-hearted over whether to announce this, but I have to say it. In certain cases, doctors have to choose who to send to ICU, and if the patient is chronically ill and has no hope, we won't admit him to the ICU."
Jane, whose father was very ill when he was in hospital, said: "Halfway through his treatment, the doctor rang me up and hinted that dad might be taking an ICU bed that is sorely needed for someone else."
Malaysia is in the third week of a month-long lockdown to deal with the rising infection numbers. However, the lockdown has shown no signs of easing the caseload.
In the central districts around the capital Kuala Lumpur, the rate of ICU usage for Covid-19 cases has exceeded capacity at 113 per cent.
Figures released last week showed that 377 ICU beds were taken up by Covid-19 patients, despite only 334 beds being initially designated for such patients. This has left just over 70 vacant ICU beds for non-Covid-19 patients across 12 hospitals in Malaysia's most densely populated region.
Nationwide, 91 per cent of all designated Covid-19 ICU beds have been taken up.
As at Thursday, Malaysia had 771 Covid-19 patients in ICUs, with more than half of them requiring ventilator support - the highest number recorded to date.
The country has for the past week reported more than 50 deaths a day from Covid-19, reaching an all-time high of 63 deaths on Wednesday. Yesterday, it set a record of 8,290 new infections, the fourth consecutive day of record infections. Another 61 deaths were reported.
