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WORK is under way to resolve maintenance issues at the four non-functioning operating theatres in the Serdang Heart Centre, The Star reports.
The maintenance problems have resulted in a long waiting list of patients in need of urgent open-heart surgery.
Sources said it was decided in a meeting that the operating theatres at the cardiac facility will be opened in phases, with one expected to be operational by the end of June.
They said four cardiothoracic operating theatres will run at the same time next week in a mock run in the presence.
“The Serdang Heart Centre will have to prepare a Gantt chart (project schedule) to get the cardiothoracic operating centres up and running as early as the end of June,” a source said.
Last week, The Star reported that the hospital, which opened in December 2022 to reduce dependency on Kuala Lumpur’s National Heart Institute, was plagued with problems.
Four of its operating theatres are out of commission because of maintenance issues, including faulty air conditioning.
The Sultan Idris Shah Hospital, also known as Serdang Hospital, still performs about three heart surgeries a day in its old building.
The centre is one of the country’s main cardiology and cardiothoracic centres that receives referrals from all over the country.
In October 2022, then health minister Khairy Jamaluddin said the waiting period for surgery at the centre would be shortened from 18 months to nine months for stable elective cases while emergency cases would be treated at once..
The healthcare facility is equipped with a hybrid operating theatre – the first of its kind under the Health Ministry – and has the capacity to serve up to 250 cardiac patients a year.
It is equipped with a coronary care unit, a paediatric intensive cardiothoracic care unit, an intensive care unit, an intensive cardiothoracic care unit, and a cardiac emergency department. – May 19, 2024.
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