| Danial Norjidi |
THE future is bright for cardiology in Brunei Darussalam, according to Datuk Dr Richard Ng, the President of the Asean Federation of Cardiology (AFC).
Datuk Ng said this while speaking in an interview yesterday on the sidelines of the ongoing 22nd Asean Federation of Cardiology Congress (AFCC) 2017 at The Rizqun International Hotel.
“Our Asean Federation of Cardiology has been established over 40 years, and over these four decades or so, we have been very cooperative and happy in sharing, in exchanging and in collaborating in our cardiology projects, in terms of sharing data, clinical knowledge, practice of medicine, and some research publications as well.”
All this, he said, is in order to improve the care of cardiac patients in the whole Asean region.
“The future looks even more promising, as now we have all 10 countries in Asean joining the AFC, where we hope to be able to understand the pattern of diseases, type of diseases, how they respond to certain types of treatment, devices, surgery, and other ways of preventive medicine as well.”
“In the region as a whole and in each country in particular, basically in Asean we all share the same many risk factors together.”
On Brunei Darussalam’s role in the AFC, he said, “I think Brunei, although it is a new member and relatively small in terms of cardiological numbers, is very important and it’s a very balancing community and works very well with every country.”
He said that Brunei’s contribution to the federation will also be important. “Because it is a small compact community, it is easier to be able to analyse and review the data and the treatment, and you have a very dynamic team of cardiac surgeon and cardiologists, technicians, nurses, and I see that the emphasis is not just on the modern technology and treatment, but to be able to go a step or two ahead of it.”
“I think Brunei’s emphasis on preventive cardiology, such as preventing all the risk factors that lead to heart disease is very important. Things like not smoking, not taking too much sugar and not being overweight.”
He also shared that he thinks Brunei has contributed significantly over the last three to four years to the AFC in its participation through the President of the Brunei Cardiac Society, Dato Paduka Dr Haji Mohd Isham bin Haji Jaafar, and the Organising Chairman of the 22nd AFCC Dr Sofian bin Dato Paduka Dr Haji Johar, both of whom he called “very dynamic”.
“I think they are both excellent and they have set up an excellent team and have very good results, as we have reviewed in your hospitals,” said Datuk Dr Ng, before adding, “I think your cardiac society is growing from strength to strength, and contributing in significant ways that we appreciate very much in the whole federation.”
“Brunei is very blessed in the sense that the communication from Brunei is very good,” he said. “The standard of English here is very good so it makes communication within the Asean region also very easy.”
Datuk Dr Ng went on to share, “I think the future is very bright for Bruneian cardiology, because generally you are able to provide very good healthcare at very affordable prices to all the people.”
Elaborating further, he provided the example that in Brunei the situation is such that people who need certain healthcare and certain expensive equipment get that healthcare. “And because of that you are in a much better position than many countries where the basic healthcare, even for simple medicine, is not available.”
“So your advancement and progress I think will be quite rapid, relatively speaking,” he added.
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