KUALA LUMPUR, 3 Sept 2017:
The Sultanah Aminah Hospital (HSA) is one of the finest hospitals in Malaysia, says health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.
He said its Emergency Department had shown 97.6% ambulance preparedness and dispatch for primary response was achieved in less than five minutes.
“From January to July this year the department had received 6,215 Priority I ambulance calls (critical emergency cases). Beside that, 67% of Priority I ambulance calls were responded in less than 15 minutes,” he said in a statement yesterday.
On average, he said the Red Zone received 600 cases a month (20 critical cases a day), 2,000 semi-critical cases (66 cases a day in Yellow Zone) and more than 10,000 non-critical cases at Green Zone.
“The department has 10 specialists, leading a group of 39 medical officers and many other paramedics and health professionals working closely as a team providing pre-hospital care besides emergency medicine service.”
Dr Noor Hisham said the hospital is also a proud home to the Neurosurgery Department – which conducted 649 major surgeries and 317 minor surgeries in 2016.
He said the hospital has fulfilled its key performance index in 2016 when 99% of newly-diagnosed brain or spine tumour patients in 2016 had undergone elective surgery in less than three months and 100% of its paediatric patients who had undergone celebrospinal fluid (CSF) shunt surgery had been safely operated by the neurosurgeon.
“Today, while browsing through the statistics for Sultanah Aminah Hospital, I must say that I am proud of this remarkable achievement.”
The Health Ministry will submit an official letter to the Singapore government on dissatisfaction over the republic’s online news portal – which published a baseless report pertaining to the country’s healthcare services and medical personnel.
Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the letter would be submitted in the near future after discussing with the ministry’s legal team, and the Foreign Ministry.
“The letter to the Singapore government will state our feelings and views on what was done by the (news) portal. After that, it is up to the Singapore Government to take the necessary action.”
Dr Subramaniam was commenting on the report which alleged there was slow response time of up to 30 minutes by an ambulance vehicle from the Sultanah Aminah Hospital, following a fatal road crash involving a 25-year-old Singaporean man on Aug 25.
The report also claimed that the hospital had demanded a sum of deposit from the victim’s family before treating the patient.
Dr Subramaniam also condemned the irresponsible action of the news portal as “the facts in the report were baseless.”
“At the end of the day, the ambulance was dispatched (to the scene) immediately. The allegation that the hospital staff refused to give treatment if payment was not made, was also baseless as emergency treatment was administered to the victim before (his) next-of-kin and family members arrived from Singapore.”
The minister also stressed that communication breakdown involving the Malay-speaking hospital staff should not become an excuse as hospitals the world over had been using their national language as the medium of communication, but that could be improved in future.
Asked whether the portal should apologise over its article, he said he would suggest that to be included in the official letter.
A friend of Justinian Tan, the 25-year-old Singaporean man who died due to injuries sustained in a road accident in Johor Bahru, said language barrier may have resulted in miscommunication with the staff of Sultanah Aminah Hospital on Aug 25.
“When the accident happened, a lot of things were going on at once, so the wait for help to come felt really long then. I thought it took 30 minutes but their logs said differently,” said Joshua De Rozario, 25, in responding to the Malaysia Ministry of Health (MOH)’s statement.
He was quoted by The Straits Times as saying there could have been miscommunication at the hospital as the staff “were speaking Malay and we were speaking English and we had difficulties communicating”.
“So many of us go to JB just for supper or shopping and we don’t actually know what to do when something happens there.
“That’s the point we want to convey. It’s not about wanting to get revenge, because that is not going to bring Justinian back. We want to move on.”
The victim died after he and five of his friends had just finished having supper and were walking back to their car at about 3am when a Proton Saga collided into the group and sped off.
Tan, who was later transferred to Singapore General Hospital, died five days later after being taken off life support.
– Bernama