PUTRAJAYA, May 25 (Bernama) -– The Health Ministry will station two breast
and endocrine surgeons at all major hospitals nationwide by 2015,
said its minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
At present, he said there were only 25 such surgeons serving in government
hospitals, in Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Johor, Kelantan, Sabah and
Sarawak.
“The number of Malaysians with breast cancer is on the rise. According to
the latest National Cancer Registry report, one in every fourteen Malaysian
women is a breast cancer patient.
"We hope that at least two such specialists will be stationed at all major
hospital nationwide by the next three years. This will help relieve a lot of
pressure on our surgeons.
"If there is only one, it means there is no break for the specialists and
they have to be on call 24 hours everyday. If we have two, than we can handle
the situation better,” he told reporters after witnessing the signing of a
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Malaysian government and the
Academy of Medicine Malaysia (AMM) for breast and endocrine surgery (BES)
courses to be conducted in the country.
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LIOW-BES 2 (LAST) PUTRAJAYA
Secretary-General of Health Ministry, Datuk Kamarul Zaman Md Isa represented
the government while AMM represented by its Deputy Master.
Under the MOU, Liow said, two surgeons Breast Surgery International and
International Association of Endocrine Surgeons would teach and train surgeons
in BES in Malaysia.
Meanwhile, the Health Ministry also signed another MOU for the Care of the
Critically Ill Surgical Patient (CCrISP) course, a structured course developed
by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Liow said CCrISP would help improve the quality of care for critically-ill
patients especially those warded at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) in the
government hospitals.
“We used to send our doctors and surgeons overseas to train in this
discipline. Now, we are bringing the course to Malaysia. That’s mean we can
train more,” he said.
At present, 10 Malaysian instructors have been trained and they will be
capable of running the CCrISP provider course in future.
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