Non-communicable disease spike caused hospital congestion - minister

 

An increase in non-communicable disease (NCD) cases due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is causing congestion in the Emergency and Trauma departments of government hospitals.

Health Minister Dr Zaliha Mustafa said although congestion in the emergency department is not something new, the Health Ministry (MOH) views the issue seriously.

“According to data obtained by the Health Informatics Centre (PIK) of MOH’s Planning Division, we see a trend of an increasing number of patients in the Emergency and Trauma department.

“One factor for this is the impact of Covid-19 where there is a daily increase in NCD cases and complications from them,” she said.

NCD is a term used to refer to ailments such as heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes.

Zaliha (above) was speaking in Parliament today in a reply to Dr Kelvin Yii Lee Wuen (Pakatan Harapan-Bandar Kuching) who asked about her ministry’s plans to reduce congestion at Emergency and Trauma departments nationwide.

She said her ministry has drawn up seven initiatives to reduce congestion and patient waiting times, including conducting internal audits and reexamining the effectiveness of the ministry’s existing initiatives.

She said she has also gone to the ground to get feedback from hospitals to better understand the issues.

The ministry’s Lean Healthcare initiative has also been effective in reducing waiting times, she said.

“An example of this is at the HTAR (Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital, Klang) Emergency Department where we have seen Lean Healthcare reducing patient waiting time from 192 minutes to only 88.

“In the medical ward, we reduced the discharge waiting time by half from 360 minutes to 180 minutes,” she said.

Zaliha said her ministry also introduced the Short Stay Unit project, targeting patients who are stable and require treatment for less than 72 hours.

Another initiative involves the implementation of a Bed Management Unit (BMU) at the hospital level - responsible for bed management and centralised patient flow.

- Bernama