KUALA LUMPUR, April 28 — Sultan Idris Shah Serdang Hospital (HSIS) has begun outsourcing outpatient angiograms to private hospitals under the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) Hospital Services Outsourcing Programme (HSOP).
A source told CodeBlue that HSIS instructed other government hospitals last Saturday to stop referring outpatient angiograms to the national cardiology referral centre, but to HSOP instead. An angiogram, often used to diagnose coronary artery disease, is a test that uses X-rays to look at the heart’s blood vessels.
“Serdang is too overwhelmed,” said the source on condition of anonymity.
However, HSIS is still accepting emergency or inpatient cases, as well as percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), end-stage renal failure cases, and cases to check previous coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedures.
When asked for a response, the Selangor public hospital said it was unable to provide a formal statement, referring CodeBlue to the MOH.
MOH is also resuming the outsourcing of radiology services to HSOP, such as ultrasound, CT-scans, and MRI.
An April 17 letter by the radiology department at Sungai Buloh Hospital in Selangor, as sighted by CodeBlue, said the medical programme of HSOP for this year resumed operation last April 6.
According to the letter, Sungai Buloh Hospital was allocated 261 slots for ultrasound, 80 for MRI, and 50 for CT-scans under HSOP.
HSOP, operated by ProtectHealth Corporation, aims to reduce waiting times by outsourcing patients from MOH hospitals to private health care facilities.
Services covered under HSOP include cardiothoracic surgery, cardiology, radiology, nephrology, radiotherapy, general surgery, ophthalmology, urology, nuclear medicine, internal medicine, and hepatology/gastroenterology.
