THE Health Ministry is working its way through the backlog for surgeries and other treatments that have been delayed over the past two years due to Covid-19.

During the pandemic, many non-essential treatments or procedures were postponed as doctors and wards at government hospitals were commandeered to deal with the Covid-19 crisis.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin today said that things were slowly getting back to normal at government hospitals.

He said that the ministry managed to reduce surgical and medical backlog cases from 57,354 in September last year to 37,963 in December 2021.

“Urology cases were one of the specialist services that were particularly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Based on the reported data, the total number of urology cases outstanding in October 2021 was 4,000 (3,809 non-cancer cases, 191 cancer cases),” he said at a press conference in Hospital Selayang today.

Khairy said the Health Ministry is also working to reduce the number of elective cases, cutting this number by 30.5% to 2,780 cases, as of December 2021.

This, he said, includes 2,630 non-cancer cases and 150 cancer cases.

He said Hospital Selayang has started the mass urology surgery initiative, including endoscopic kidney stone removal.

“This will be performed continuously for four days until the weekend, involves 11 urologists and health workers from various hospitals: Selayang Hospital, Serdang Hospital, UPM Teaching Hospital, and private hospitals: KPJ Damansara Hospital, KPJ Sentosa Hospital and Avicenna Hospital.

“This initiative is also the result of co-operation from various departments such as the anaesthesiology, radiology, pathology, hospital management as well as support from the Selangor Health Department and the Medical Development Division.”

He added that at the same time, other non-Covid-19 case management was ongoing through cluster hospital and global surgery initiatives.

This included outsourcing of services to private hospitals. He also said that the reopening of elective surgical halls in Health Ministry hospitals had begun in stages in October 2021. – February 11, 2022.