District Hospitals Perform Non-emergency Surgeries On Saturdays

PETALING JAYA, July 21 (Bernama) -- The Health Ministry wants all district hospitals to perform scheduled or non-emergency surgeries on Saturdays, which is an off day, to reduce waiting time for patients.
Its minister, Datuk Dr Chua Soi Lek said there were some 50,000 "cold cases" or scheduled non-emergency cases pending for surgery, and patients had to wait for months before undergoing treatment.
The hospitals were performing more surgeries now with 229,686 operations performed last year compared to only 175,490 surgeries in 1997, he said.
"We observed that the number of emergency operations are increasing compared to the number of non-emergency cases and this is affecting the scheduled surgeries (or non-emergency cases) due to lack of doctors and nurses," Dr Chua told reporters after opening the sixth Liver Update Conference, here Thursday.
"We also observed that patients had to wait for more than a reasonable time. For instance, for breast cancer, it is wise for a patient to go for surgery within two to three weeks after it was diagnosed but because of the increase in emergency surgeries, a patient waits between six weeks to two months," he said.
Dr Chua said for vasectomy surgery, patients currently had to wait for two to three months and it took about four to five months for a hernia operation.
Apart from district hospitals, he said leading hospitals such as Putrajaya, Selayang, Taiping and Muar would also have to perform non-emergency surgeries on Saturdays from 8.30 am to 1 pm.
Some of the common cases are vasectomy, hernia or cyst surgeries, which are mostly non-fatal.
He said the new move, likely to be implemented in October, would cost the ministry about RM4 to RM5 million to pay doctors to perform surgeries on Saturdays.
Meanwhile, Dr Chua said liver cancer, the 10th most common cancer among Malaysian males could be attributed to Hepatitis B.
Although the incidence of Hepatitis B fell from 2,863 cases in 2000 to 1,795 cases in 2004, yet about five to eight percent of Malaysians were chronically infected with the virus.
"In a survey of almost 900 patients with chronic Hepatitis B virus surface antigen carried out by MLF (Malaysian Liver Foundation), 50 percent of Hepatitis B carriers are infective, and of these 30 to 40 percent have evidence of liver disease and requires treatment," he said.
Dr Chua also said Hepatitis C was also a growing problem in Malaysia as more and more people were found to have the antibodies.
In 2000, 550 Hepatitis C cases were reported but the figures rose to 741 last year.