KUALA LUMPUR: The National Heart Institute wants its surgical teams to have access to the operating theatres in Serdang Hospital.

The call was made by IJN chief executive officer Datuk Mohd Radzif Mohd Yunus to the Health Ministry to reduce the number of patients awaiting cardiac surgery.

IJN had recently proposed a "practical, cost-efficient solution" which will capitalise on its expert surgical teams and the under-utilised cardiac facility at Serdang Hospital.

It has a waiting list of some 111 paediatric surgeries, both simple and complex.

Radzif said all urgent cases were immediately operated on.
Those on the waiting list were mainly patients who were still not ready for the operation, needing further tests, suffering complications and other problems.

"We have the expertise but not the capacity to accommodate all the cases.

"The problem of capacity will be resolved when our new wing is ready next year."

"The long waiting time and waiting list faced by IJN are due to capacity constraints and not lack of expertise. We have the expertise to do even the most complex paediatric case," said Radzif.

Currently, the IJN paediatric team comrprises five consultant paediatric cardiologists assisted by three paediatric specialists.

Also lending a helping hand are seven consultant surgeons.

IJN currently handles more than 10,000 outpatient paediatric cases yearly of which more than 2,000 are newly referred cases.

Last year, it performed more than 1,000 surgeries and procedures to treat paediatric heart patients.

Radzif said the ministry should consider the proposal as the New Straits Times had reported on July 6 that operating theatres at the RM300 million Serdang Hospital, designed to be the reference centre for cardiology, cardiothoracic, urology and nephrology surgery in the country, have remained empty since they were opened in 2005.

He said IJN's resources could be used far more efficiently if they were given the opportunity to jointly operate at the newly established heart unit at the Serdang Hospital.

He also said IJN was keen to jointly operate at other government hospitals with fully-equipped heart units, such as those in Penang, Johor Baru, Kuching and Alor Star, which were either under-utilised or not operational due to a lack of manpower.

He added IJN was also offering to provide on-the-job training for medical personnel at government and university hospitals to help alleviate the lack of manpower.