Patients are still waiting for heart surgeries at Aspen Medical Hospital, and Minister for Health, Doctor Ifereimi Waqainabete says the Ba Hospital theatres are undergoing some development work.
Aspen Medical has assumed responsibility for managing Lautoka and Ba Hospitals since 1st April 2022 and 9th April 2022 respectively.
The Minister says heart surgeries will get underway when all processes and functions at Aspen Medical Hospital are working well.
This was highlighted by Doctor Waqainabete when questioned by fijivillage about when will heart surgeries start at Aspen Medical Hospital.
Some patients are still waiting for their heart surgeries at Aspen Medical.
A man had said last month that he had initially been informed that a surgical procedure will be performed on him in May and then he was told it will happen in August.
The man also says he has now been advised that he has to be treated in India, where he has to pay for his travel and accommodation.
The Health Minister says some works are being conducted at the hospital theatres to be able to bring it up to the standards which are required to perform high-level operations such as open-heart surgery.
Dr Waqainabete says they have done some minor operations to be able to test some of their processes.
The Minister adds that from their discussion, they are looking to start as soon as possible with the heart surgeries, and they are hopeful that it will begin by the end of this month.
He says there is a lot of planning in place, and they have to identify the patients in terms of screening and also ensure that processes are in place in the theatre that will be able to do them.
We have been sending questions to Aspen Medical since September 22nd and they are yet to respond.
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