Covid-19 exposed our healthcare system's deficiencies - Health DG

 

Health Ministry director-general Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the deficiencies of the country's healthcare system.

Delivering a speech to the Malaysian Society of Anaesthesiologists & College of Anaesthesiologists Annual Scientific Congress 2021 virtually, Noor Hisham said this was something that healthcare workers had been dealing with for a long time.

Despite the difficulties, he said healthcare workers have fought hard during the pandemic.

"The pandemic has unveiled the insufficiencies and deficiencies of our healthcare system which we have struggled to cope with in the past few decades.

"The very fact that we have come thus far is a testament that we possess the underlying resilience to help us to rise above this pandemic," he said.

He said anaesthesiologists have also played a critical role during the pandemic.

"Unknown to the wider society, they are also grappling with their own issues in the pandemic.

"Anaesthesiologists and intensive care staff have been shouldering emotional loads for critically ill Covid-19 patients and their families.

"On a daily basis, they witness or actively participate in the last (video) calls to the families before planned emergency intubation, teleconference with families who are not allowed to visit, family discussion on end-of-life cases, and life-saving treatments," he said.

He added that all these were done with the awareness they face the real risk of bringing the Sars-CoV-2 virus back to their families at home.

"For many, they have not been able to see or live with their own families," he said.

Noor Hisham noted that there was a shortage of anaesthesiologists in public service.

There was already a deficiency in anaesthesia manpower before the pandemic. As of November 2019, there were 1,024 registered anaesthesiologists and 50 registered intensivists with half of them in the private sector.

"It was estimated there was a deficit of about 1,200 anaesthesiologists in 2020 in the public service.

"When the pandemic hit us in early 2020, there were only 560 anaesthesiologists and 21 intensivists serving in the Health Ministry.

"It is also estimated that by 2025, the estimated deficit of specialist anaesthesiologists will be 645 and subspecialists 87 and that it will take more than 10 years to overcome the shortage if current training capacity is not increased," he said.

He said the pandemic showed the need to boost investments and manpower in the country's healthcare system.

"The pandemic has exposed the manpower shortage and the need to train, retain, and invest in building a larger anaesthesia workforce," he said. - Mkini