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Number of coronary bypass operations
Following is a question by the Hon Huang Chen-ya and a written reply by the Secretary for Health and Welfare, Mrs Katherine Fok, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
Reply:
Does the Government know of:
the number of coronary bypass operations performed in various public hospitals in the past three years, as well as the complication rate and the survival rate of patients within one year after the operation; and
the current number of patients awaiting such operations, as well as the average and longest waiting time for these patients to receive their operations?
During the past three years from 1994-1996, the Hospital Authority (HA) carried out 189, 225 and 260 coronary bypass operations respectively. Information on complication rate and one-year survival rate are not readily available as they are not captured in HA's computerised Medical Record Abstract System.
Collating information manually on the complication rate requires significant professionals' time and effort to retrieve the medical records of the patients concerned and to identify whether another co-existing disease is co-incidental or is a result of the disease itself or of the treatment given. To obtain the survival rate, hospitals have to verify the status of each patient who has received coronary bypass operation on a regular basis and this is not being carried out as a routine.
There are currently 98 patients awaiting coronary bypass operations. While the average waiting time is four months, the actual waiting time for individual patient depends on medical assessment of the urgency of his/her medical condition, such as severity of ischaemic heart disease, anatomical pathology and other associated co- morbidity. The patients who are diagnosed as clinically stable are normally operated on within six months.
End