SERDANG – Serdang Hospital’s cardiology centre will begin its operations on December 12, announced caretaker health minister Khairy Jamaluddin today.
Khairy said the new cardiology centre will help to alleviate patient load while providing state-of-the-art care and will remain affordable for the people.
“The cardiology centre would be able to reduce waiting time of patients from 18 months down to just nine months for elective cases,” he said, stressing that emergency cases will be given immediate care.
Khairy also assures that the medical facility will remain fully under the purview of the Health Ministry, alluding to concerns that operating the centre would require a new business to remain sustainable.
“There were concerns for us to find a new (business) model among other issues, but I assure you the centre will remain fully with (the ministry) and Serdang Hospital,” he said, reiterating the need to provide affordable care for the people.
The building of the new centre is also crucial as Serdang Hospital’s cardiology services face a high workload with over 40,000 outpatients and 12,000 invasive procedures a year, including coronary angiogram and angioplasty.
With the opening of the centre, Serdang Hospital would be able to conduct over 60,000 cardiology procedures yearly, up from 35,000, said Khairy.
It has the highest workload among the Health Ministry’s nine other cardiology centres nationwide, said Khairy.
The new eight-storey cardiology centre is equipped with 262 hospital beds and four operating theatres, with two more to be completed.
The new centre also possesses a Tesla MRI 3.0 machine that is able to perform more accurate cardiovascular imaging while cutting down the procedure time from 45 minutes to just 20 minutes.
A nine-storey parking block consisting of 536 parking bays were also constructed along with the new centre.
Meanwhile, Khairy also pointed out that Malaysia has some 300 specialists in cardiology nationwide but only 10% are attached to public healthcare, while the rest are employed within the private sector.
This is despite cardiology services within public healthcare facing three times the workload.
The new cardiology centre was approved under the 10th Malaysia Plan in 2015 and had a total cost of RM546 million, with RM311 million spent for construction while another RM235 million was used for procurement of equipment. – The Vibes, October 17, 2022
