By V. Sivaji
For the layman, the mere mention of having a surgery brings about harrowing and frightening thoughts, even worse when it involves the surgery on the brain or the spine.
However, a team of specialist doctors at the Penang General Hospital are carrying out such critical surgeries on a daily basis to help save lives of the people and to give them a better quality of life.
The team is led by Dr Azman Raffiq and their team of six other specialists.
The department was initially established way back in 1972 and serves as the regional referral centre for the Northern Region.
Penang is the first state in the country to establish Neurosurgical services outside of Kuala Lumpur to provide neurosurgical services for the state and other hospitals in the neighbouring states owing to its close proximity with these hospitals.
Among them are Hospital Balik Pulau, Hospital Seberang Jaya, Hospital Bukit Mertajam, Hospital Kepala Batas, Hospital Sungai Bakap, Hospital Kulim, Hospital Baling, Hospital Sungai Petani, Hospital Parit Buntar and Hospital Taiping.
Among their services include treatment for brain trauma management, spine trauma management, management of brain and spinal tumour, degenerative spine diseases, surgical management of intracranial bleeding due to stroke, congenital brain and spinal disorders, brain and spine infection, cranial and spinal vascular malformations, management of hydrocephalus, pain intervention services and also the functional neurosurgery – awake craniotomy for brain tumour surgeries.
They have also set up a unit in Hospital Seberang Jaya in 2022 and have extended such services in Bukit Mertajam and Kulim too as the number of cases are coming from the centres on the mainland.
“By having such units we can help ease the hardship of the patients in terms of transport, time and even monetary wise as many of them are from the B40 group.
“Our team of specialists provide visiting and in-house neurosurgical services in Hospital Seberang Jaya from 1st February 2022 and out-patient clinic services in Hospital Seberang Jaya to ease the financial and logistics burden for patients residing in Seberang Perai.
“We hope to offer visiting specialists’ out-patient clinic services in Hospital Bukit Mertajam and Hospital Kulim and neurosurgical operative procedures from February 2023.
“We are also capable of providing awake craniotomy procedures for safe resection of brain tumours since August 2022. To-date we have performed 10 such surgeries since initiation,” said Dr Azman to Penang Hyperlocal.
In the meantime, they have also organised the Penang International Neurosurgical Congress in August 2022 which was graced by the Governor of Penang Tun Ahmad Fuzi Abdul Razak.
The congress was the first large scale International Neurosurgery Congress to be held in Penang in association with the Neurosurgery Association of Malaysia and was attended by 500 delegates from Malaysia and worldwide. This was followed by the Neurosurgical Masters’ Candidates Final Professional Exit Exams which was conducted for the first time in Penang in November 2022.
Presently, the department also serves as the training hospital for Neurosurgical Masters’ candidates and gazetting neurosurgeons. They also organize online monthly discussions with senior consultant neurosurgeons from Malaysia for complex cases and to deliver the best treatment for the patients.
The department is currently handling approximately 20-30 a day for referrals of neurosurgical cases from hospitals in the state of Penang and some neighbouring hospitals in Kedah and Perak. From this number, approximately 45-50% of these referred cases are from hospitals in Seberang Perai (Hospital Seberang Jaya), Hospital Bukit Mertajam and Hospital Kulim.
Hence, there is an urgent need to establish cluster neurosurgical services in these hospitals which can number to approximately 1100 cases per year or 90 – 100 cases per month.
They are also grateful and appreciate the support and encouragement of several department heads and state officials for their success to-date.
Among them are Dato’ Dr. Ma’arof Bin Sudin ( Former Director of Penang State Health Department), Dr. Nur Aslina Bahakodin (Deputy Director of Penang State Health Department), Dato’ Dr Teo Gim Sian (Director of Penang Hospital), Dr. Saiful Azlan Sharif (Director of Hospital Seberang Jaya), Dr. Goh Hin Kwang (Director of Hospital Bukit Mertajam) and Dr. Mithali Abdullah (Director of Hospital Kulim).
For further information on the unit please email [email protected] or their Facebook page : Neurosurgery Penang.
Penang Hyperlocal would like to convey “syabas” to the wonderful work and dedication of the team of specialists at the neurosurgical department.
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