KUALA LUMPUR: The Health Ministry (MOH) reduced non-COVID-19 treatment case backlogs in government hospitals by 33.8 per cent at the end of last year by implementing various initiatives including mass surgery.

Health Minister Khairy Jamaluddin said there were 57,355 cases of non-COVID-19 backlogs on Sept 30, 2021, comprising 53,785 surgical-based cases and 3,570 medical-based cases.

"Following the implementation of several initiatives including the mass surgery initiative on a 'gotong-royong' basis by MOH and private hospitals, the number of such cases was reduced by 19,392 or 33.8 per cent to 37,963 cases on Dec 31, 2021.

"Judging from this, we will strive further to cut this figure by continuing this initiative with several hospitals including Universiti Kebangsaan Medical Centre for the neurology discipline," he said when launching the Mass Urology Surgery Initiative (MUSI) programme at Hospital Selayang today.

Khairy said the reduction of case backlogs was also made possible by MOH's approach in outsourcing services to private hospitals since the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic and the reopening of elective surgery theatres in government hospitals in stages beginning October last year.

On the MUSI programme, Khairy said MOH was targeting to settle 50 cases of backlogs involving urinary system diseases and andrology throughout the four days of the programme which began yesterday.

"There was a backlog of 4,000 urology cases reported in October 2021 while at the end of December 2021, the number of these elective cases awaiting surgery was 2,780.

"The majority of cases still waiting for surgery involved stones in the kidney or ureter and benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH.

"If left untreated for too long, such cases can cause the patients to suffer other complications like bacterial infection and damage to the kidney," he added.

-- BERNAMA