Health DG: Hospitals overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases, patients of other illnesses facing challenges

PETALING JAYA: Patients having other illnesses are facing additional challenges as hospitals are increasingly overwhelmed with Covid-19 cases.

Malaysiakini quoted Health director-general Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah as saying on Saturday (Aug 7) that this has made it challenging for non-Covid-19 patients to undergo surgeries as focus is currently on addressing the deadly pandemic.

"Suspension of elective surgeries and reduction in emergency surgeries have resulted in collateral damage in health and well-being of non-Covid-19 patients - even for urgent and time-critical surgery like cancer operations," Dr Noor Hisham was reported saying at the virtual Malaysian Society of Anaesthesiologists and College of Anaesthesiologists Annual Scientific Congress 2021.

"It has been impossible to perform elective surgery since December 2020 hence the waiting list for elective and semi-elective surgeries is at an all-time high,” he was quoted as saying.

Hybrid hospitals dealing with general patients and also Covid-19 cases are especially hard hit.

Dr Noor Hisham highlighted the urgency of strategising a return to elective surgery to deal with the backlog and to give solutions for patients waiting for non-elective surgeries.

The pandemic has also exposed a manpower shortage and the need to train, retrain and invest in building a larger anaesthesia workforce, he said.

"Infrastructure and facilities are important but without doctors and staff to fill them, we will not be able to utilise these resources,” said Dr Noor Hisham.

He added that the shortage of general anesthesiologists, medical officers and critical care nurses has limited the expansion plans of intensive care beds during the Covid-19 surge.

Noor Hisham said that as the pandemic is unlikely to end in the next six months, critical care capacity must be increased to a level where the Covid-19 surge will have little impact on non-Covid-19 business-as-usual activities.

He added there is a need to develop a strategy to provide enough critical care beds for Covid-19 patients and also for patients suffering from other ailments.