VietNamNet Bridge – While cardiac surgery facilities in HCM City continue to work at full capacity, the list of patients awaiting their turn runs into the thousands every year.

Nearly 3,000 children with congenital heart diseases register every year for surgeries at public hospitals, according to the HCM City Paediatric Cardiology and Congenital Heart Diseases Society.— File Photo

The Heart Institute in HCM City is overloaded, performing 1,250-1,300 surgeries a year, but around 10,000 patients are currently on the waiting list for cardiovascular operations, including 2,000 children with congenital heart diseases.

Only a quarter of its patients are from the city with the rest coming from elsewhere.

The number of patients requiring heart surgery had increased four-fold since 1998, Nguyen Ngoc Chieu, the director of the institute, said.

Nearly 80 per cent of patients could afford to pay for their surgery while the rest needed assistance from the society, he said.

Despite various measures being taken to ease the overload, including performing surgeries on Saturday, the number of patients kept rising steadily, he said.

The hospital has also transferred surgical techniques to many other hospitals in the city and elsewhere, including the HCM City pediatric hospitals No1 and No2, Hue Central Hospital, and Ha Noi Heart Institute.

Thong Nhat Hospital and the People's Hospital 115 in HCM City, the Can Tho General Hospital, and the Da Nang General Hospital were expected to benefit in the next few years, he added.

Nearly 3,000 children with congenital heart diseases register every year for surgeries at public hospitals, according to the HCM City Paediatric Cardiology and Congenital Heart Diseases Society.

Doctors said children with heart diseases could die if they fail to promptly undergo surgery.

VNS/VNN